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“Where Do Old Birds Go to Die?”: Queer Environmental Geographies and Liminal Spaces in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

“Where Do Old Birds Go to Die?”: Queer Environmental Geographies and Liminal Spaces in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Meghna Prabir
Copyright: © 2023 |Pages: 19
ISBN13: 9781668466506|ISBN10: 1668466503|ISBN13 Softcover: 9781668466513|EISBN13: 9781668466520
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-6650-6.ch005
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MLA

Prabir, Meghna. "“Where Do Old Birds Go to Die?”: Queer Environmental Geographies and Liminal Spaces in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness." Urban Poetics and Politics in Contemporary South Asia and the Middle East, edited by Moussa Pourya Asl, IGI Global, 2023, pp. 82-100. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-6650-6.ch005

APA

Prabir, M. (2023). “Where Do Old Birds Go to Die?”: Queer Environmental Geographies and Liminal Spaces in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. In M. Pourya Asl (Ed.), Urban Poetics and Politics in Contemporary South Asia and the Middle East (pp. 82-100). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-6650-6.ch005

Chicago

Prabir, Meghna. "“Where Do Old Birds Go to Die?”: Queer Environmental Geographies and Liminal Spaces in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness." In Urban Poetics and Politics in Contemporary South Asia and the Middle East, edited by Moussa Pourya Asl, 82-100. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2023. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-6650-6.ch005

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Abstract

Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017) addresses the question of gendered identity through the spaces that its protagonist Anjum inhabits. Applying ideas from intersectional queer ecologies, this study examines liminal spaces in the novel where the dispossessed are shown to be able to find a sense of home. It is widely believed that the novel encompasses the space of two graveyards: Anjum's graveyard, which becomes a paradise, and Kashmir, the paradise that has become a graveyard. It is argued that Roy examines contemporary India's multi-layered spaces, providing incisive observations that are deeply unsettling for the fundamentalist mind to contemplate. The non-normative geography of her literary landscape seems to posit that the liminal, in-between spaces inhabited by those with identities that transcend homogenous definitions are the spaces in which those persecuted for not conforming to acceptable norms of identity can truly find refuge and security.

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