The Glass Palace: A Hybrid Cultural Syncretism of Identity and Landscape

Abstract

Amitav Ghosh, one of the most cosmopolitan voices in contemporary Indian English literature, intricately navigates historical and political realities, dissolving and reconstructing cultural and geopolitical boundaries. His narratives, deeply rooted in human emotions and spiritual aspirations, transcend temporal and spatial constraints to depict the interconnectedness of individuals and their socio-political landscapes. The Glass Palace emerges as a profound literary interrogation of indigeneity, identity, colonial subjugation, and nationalist fervour within South and Southeast Asia. Spanning from the fall of Mandalay in 1885 to post-colonial India and Burma, the novel offers a counter-discourse to imperialist historiography by foregrounding the perspectives of the colonized. Through the interweaving of personal and political narratives, Ghosh meticulously examines the dialectics of identity formation, cultural resilience, and nationalist resistance against colonial hegemony. This paper contends that The Glass Palace not only reconstructs historical memory but also reinterprets the enduring ramifications of colonialism, illuminating contemporary struggles for cultural preservation and political sovereignty in an era of globalization.

Keywords: indigeneity; identity; colonial rule; displacement