“These walls diminish us. Make us something less than humans”: Eco-Dystopic Imagination in Prayaag Akbar’s Leila

Apocalyptic imagination emerges as a central theme within Anthropocene fiction in their discussions of environmental hazards and climate change. This article looks at the novel Leila (2017) by Prayaag Akbar, based on the author’s personal experiences in Delhi and Mumbai. Despite Leila being a dystopian novel set in the future, the article attempts to analyse the strong eco-dystopic elements and the trope of climate change weaved into the narrative. Akbar’s description of the urbanscape offers a poignant perspective of its near-obliterated environment coupled with the changing socio-political dynamics of communities in India. The article reveals an eco-dystopic layer of the narrative and, taking cues from discard studies, discusses the politics of waste and wasted lives, the widening disparity between the rich and the poor, and the over-reliance on technology against the backdrop of extreme climate and polluted environments.