Blending of Genres as a Postcolonial Project: Reading Amitav Ghosh’s In An Antique Land

Abstract

The present dissertation on In An Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh attempts to show blending of many genres such as travelogue, fiction, fact, autobiography, ethnography in a single book in the postcolonial era. Ghosh, here, shows the twelfth century master slave relation and twentieth century of his own autobiography. To create Indian slave Bomma's tale, he interweaves his own into it. Covering the time span of 800 years of Egyptians and Indians, Ghosh seamlessly weaves together history and fiction to highlight the traits of both. Mixing conversation and research, imagination and scholarship, the book is also charged, eccentric history of the special relationship between two countries, Egypt and India.