Intrinsic Value of Nature and Biodiversity in Easterine Kire’s Fiction

Intrinsic Value of Nature and Biodiversity in Easterine Kire’s Fiction: Comparison

Please note this is a comparison between Version 2 by Abigail Zou and Version 1 by Aravind B R.

The escalating environmental crisis has intensified scholarly attention on literature that inquiries into the relationship between humans and nature. This study addresses an existing gap in ecocritical research by applying Deep Ecology to selected passages from Easterine Kire’s novels, Son of the Thundercloud (2016), Don’t Run, My Love (2017), A Respectable Woman (2019), and Spirit Nights (2022), to analyse the portrayal of nature’s intrinsic value and biodiversity. Through close analysis of selected passages, the analysis investigates how Easterine Kire’s narratives represent landscapes, plants, animals, and ecological relationships as living, primary factors. The selected passages question anthropocentric perspectives by foregrounding the interconnectedness of all life forms and advocating an ecocentric worldview. The study highlights how Kire’s Fiction represents profound ecological ethics and sustainable human–environment relationships through culturally grounded ecological perspectives.

ecocriticism
deep ecology
intrinsic value
biodiversity
ecological knowledge
ecocentric literature

Esterine Kire is a contemporary Naga writer whose fiction is deeply intertwined with the cultural, social and ecological life of Northeast India. Her novels often depict landscapes, forests, rivers, plants, animals and seasonal cycles as prominent elements of human and community life. This entry examines selected passages from Son of the Thundercloud (2016), Don’t Run, My Love (2017), A Respectable Woman (2019), and Spirit Nights (2022 through the lens of Deep Ecology.

Deep Ecology, introduced by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in 1973, calls into question human-centered approaches to the natural world and foregrounds the inherent value of all living beings. In this context, intrinsic value refers to the inherent worth of non-human entities independent of their utility to human beings and their worth beyond human utility. In this context, biodiversity refers to the variety of plant and animal life represented in Kire’s fiction and to the ecological relationships through which this biodiversity is sustained through lived experience, including traditional practices, food systems, medicinal knowledge and seasonal patterns. Kire’s selected passages therefore offer a literary context for examining how intrinsic value and biodiversity are represented through ecological interdependence, culturally transmitted knowledge, reciprocity and respect for the natural world.

Indian literature offers multifaceted and rich portrayals of nature in its many forms ^[1]. Yet, these depictions have not been adequately addressed through an ecocritical lens. Kire’s novels offer a significant corpus for an initial analysis of selected passages ^[2]. In selected passages from Son of the Thundercloud (2016), Don’t Run, My Love (2017), A Respectable Woman (2019), and Spirit Nights (2022), landscapes, forests, rivers, and wildlife are represented not just as settings but as active, shaping forces shaping life. This approach indicates an ecocentric worldview that challenges human-centered perspectives.

Kire’s environmental imagination also moves beyond her fiction to her poetry and essays, where landscape, cultural memory, indigenous identity and interactions with the natural world attract literary attention. Although the present entry focuses on chosen passages from four novels, her wider literary writing presents a wider context for understanding the ecological worldview that informs her fiction. Taking these genres into consideration alongside her novels can deepen the understanding of the continuity of her engagement with nature, culture and community.

Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement ^[3] provides another interpretive perspective for understanding this depiction of the environment. Ghosh argues for a literary vision in which the non-human environment is not confined to the background but is given a more dynamic presence within the narrative. His emphasis on settings as dynamic and agentic entities of literary works is especially pertinent to Kire’s representation of landscapes, rivers, forests, plants and animals. In the selected passages examined in this study, these elements function not merely as geographical settings but as active agents in the lives and experiences of human and non-human beings. Ghosh’s perspective therefore reinforces the Deep Ecology framework by lending greater support to the argument that Kire’s narratives give ecological settings a meaningful presence and active role within the literary text.

References

Sharma, D.; Dattaray, S. (Eds.) Ecocriticism and Environment: Rethinking Literature and Culture; Primus Books: New Delhi, India, 2018; Available online: https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1971712334779264423 (accessed on 24 June 2026).
Kamei, A. An Ecocritical Study of Easterine Kire’s When the River Sleeps and Son of the Thundercloud. In Keeper of Stories; Pou, K.B.V., Ed.; Highlander: Baltimore, MD, USA, 2023; pp. 201–214.
Ghosh, A. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, USA, 2016.