Shubhanku Kochar teaches at the University School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi. He specialises in African literatures in English and eco-criticism. His latest publications are Environmental Post-Colonialism: A Literary Response (2021, Lexington Books), Literature from the Peripheries: Refrigerated Culture and Pluralism (2023, Lexington Books), and Pastoral and Anti-Pastoral: Representation of City and Village in Literature (2024, Ibidem/Columbia University Press). His forthcoming books are Beyond the Ocean: Literature History and the British Empire and Poverty and Pollution: Environmental Casteism and Dalit Literature, both to be published by Springer. His poems have been published in Protagonist, a popular literary magazine.Shehnaz Kabir has been awarded with a doctorate degree by the Department of English at Jadavpur University. Her latest publications include “Negotiating Identities in the Indo-Caribbean Diaspora: Queer Bildungsroman and Gendered Spaces in Select Novels of Shani Mootoo” (The IACLALS Journal, 2020) and “Commodification of Identity: Dissecting the Coolie Body in the Indo-Caribbean Diaspora” (New Literaria, 2021). Her paper “Gendered Negotiations and Role of Female Agency in Select Indo-Caribbean Fiction” is published by Springer. Her areas of interest include hydro-colonialism, indenture trade, diaspora literature, material cultures, and postcolonial studies.

• Introduction Section I — Mythology, Morality, and Faith 1. Good Ruler, Good Earth: An Analysis of the Representation of Famine as Karmic Effect in Select Texts from Ancient India 2. Famished Ground, Hungry Being: Udgītha and Selfhood in Chāndogya Upanishad 3. Ethical Dilemmas and Desperation during Famine: Exploring Moral Choices in Desperate Circumstances in the Mahabharata 4. Food and Crying for Food in the Bengal Maṅgala Kābyas of the 18th Century Section II — Alternative Approach to Plays and Paraliterature 5. Famine, Tughlaq and Girish Karnad: A Historical Analysis 6. Reclaiming the Memories of Famine in India through the Writings of Mughal Court Writers 7. Representation of Entitlement and Deprivation: Reading Bengal Famine through Bijan Bhattacharya’s Plays Section III — Statehood and Community Trauma 8. Bankimchandra’s Anandamath and the Spectre of the Bengal Famine of 1770 9. Alimentary Catastrophes and Tragedies of Hunger on Screen: Exploring Mrinal Sen’s Baishey Srabon (1960) and Akaler Sandhane (In Search of a Famine, 1980) through a Postcolonial Lens 10. Hungry Man Reach for the Book. It is a Weapon!: The Political Economy of Famine, Caste, Class and Imperialism in Bhabani Bhattacharya’s So Many Hungers and He Who Rides a Tiger 11. Bamboo Flowering and Rat Flood in Mizoram: Description of the ‘Mautam’ Famine in Malsawmi Jacob’s ‘Zorami: The Redemption Song’ Section IV — Voice of the Marginalized 12. Chronicles of the Na’anka Durbhikhya: Understanding Famines and Social Realism in Odisha through the Writings of Kanhu Charan Mohanty 13. Where Famine is Life: A Study of the Select Karisal Short Stories 14. An Exploration of Kalahandi Famine as ‘New Famine’: Depiction of Hunger, Mass Starvation, and Death in Post-independence Odia Literature 15. Palamau is a Mirror of India”: Famine, Seed, and Making the Subaltern Matter Afterword