by Editor | Jul 19, 2026 | Call for Book Chapters, Edited Volume
An Edited Volume by
Ruchika Hooda
Assistant Professor at Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be University), Ambala
Ms. Diksha
Assistant Professor in the Dept. of English at Chandigarh University, Chandigarh
Concept Note
Michael Marder’s foundational claim in Plant-Thinking (2013) is that vegetal life poses a distinct philosophical problem precisely because it resists every category Western thought has used to grant beings significance. Plants have no discernible interiority, no centralised nervous system, and no intentional relation to the world as animals and humans are assumed to have, and this absence has allowed philosophy to treat plant existence as beneath serious inquiry rather than as an unresolved question in its own right. Plant horror, defined as the enduring cultural fascination with predatory vines, sentient forests, carnivorous gardens, and monstrous bloom, has emerged as a recognisable strand of the ecogothic, yet existing scholarship remains overwhelmingly Euro-American in scope and theoretical orientation. The South Asian, postcolonial, and Global South vegetal imagination remains critically underexplored. This book volume proposes to address this gap by bringing critical plant studies, ecogothic theory, ecofeminism, and postcolonial ecology into sustained conversation with South Asian and world literary and cinematic texts.
The most significant scholarly intervention in the field to date, Dawn Keetley and Angela Tenga’s Plant Horror (2016), mapped the recurring tropes of the genre largely across British and American texts. However, it left the postcolonial vegetal imagination almost entirely unexamined. South Asia offers an exceptionally rich archive for this inquiry. Long before plant horror was named as a genre, regional folk traditions had already populated forests and groves with vegetal beings that blur the line between sacred guardian and predatory threat. The yakshi of Kerala’s tree-spirit lore offers the most instructive example of this trajectory: in early Dravidian and Vedic traditions, yakshis were revered as benevolent nature deities, symbolising fertility, beauty, and the protective spirit of the sacred grove or Kavu. Only under the pressures of later patriarchal and Brahmanical religious shifts was their image inverted, from guardian to predator, from deity to vampiric ghost.
Art historians of early Indian religion have long traced this trajectory in the yaksha/yakshi figures themselves. Ananda Coomaraswamy’s foundational study identified these tree-spirits as pre-Vedic, animist deities of fertility and abundance, later incorporated into Brahmanical cosmology. Stella Kramrisch similarly located their origin in indigenous nature-worship that predates and exceeds the subordinate place later religious orthodoxy would assign them. The formative history of colonial botany was imposed upon this, with the result that the plantation, the botanical garden, and the cash crop contributed to the making of horror architectures. Colonial forced plantations of indigo, tea, rubber, and opium uprooted both ecosystems and communities, and that violence resurfaces in literature and cinema, displaced onto Gothic plant imagery. The argument this volume insists on is that vegetal monstrosity is not a timeless, ahistorical dread but a historically and politically produced category, shaped by caste, gender, colonial extraction, and environmental dispossession.
A recurring thread throughout the volume is the persistent gendering of the monstrous plant. Across folklore, fiction, and film, the dangerous plant-being is disproportionately coded as female, seductive, fertile, devouring, and ultimately punished or exorcised at the end of the narrative. Reading the demonisation of these figures as historically produced, configured by caste, gender, and religion rather than arising organically from an ‘ancient’ fear of nature, is itself a theoretical move the volume insists on.
The volume also attempts to situate plant horror as a contemporary mode of climate feeling. As anthropogenic climate change destabilises the boundary between cultivated and wild, plant horror narratives offer one of the few popular vocabularies available for processing the unsettling sense that the vegetal world might no longer remain passive.
The volume invites contributions that explore questions such as
- How do South Asian and postcolonial traditions of plant-being such as folklore, sacred grove ecology, and animist cosmology shape regional inflexions of vegetal horror distinct from those theorised by Western ecocriticism?
- How does the history of colonial botany, the plantation, the botanical garden, the cash crop, function as a horror architecture, encoding environmental and political violence in vegetal Gothic imagery?
- How is the monstrous plant persistently gendered, and what does this reveal about the co-implication of patriarchal and ecological domination?
- What new forms of vegetal horror are emerging in response to climate anxiety, pandemic contagion, and posthuman ecological futures?
- How do literary and cinematic plant horror texts in South Asian languages construct, contest, or revise the genre’s conventions?
- How can indigenous and folk epistemologies of plant agency serve as theoretical resources, rather than mere objects of study, for plant horror scholarship?
- How can critical plant studies be brought into productive dialogue with horror theory to theorize vegetal monstrosity beyond anthropocentric frameworks?
Thematic Tracks
The volume is organized into seven thematic tracks. Contributors are invited to identify the track most relevant to their submission, though cross-track work is encouraged where the material demands it.
- Track 1: Theorising the Vegetal Monstrous
Horror theory has largely been built around creatures that hunt, intend, and violate, categories that sit uneasily with organisms that have no brain and operate on timescales humans can barely perceive. Chapters may ask whether a plant can be truly monstrous without a mind, drawing on Marder, Gagliano, or Hall as theoretical foundations.
- Track 2: Folklore, Myth, and the Sacred-Turned-Monstrous
This track examines oral and religious traditions that coded plants as dangerous long before horror emerged as a genre, centred on Kerala’s yakshi and related Tamil, Sri Lankan, and North Indian tree-spirit figures. Their demonisation must be read as historically produced, shaped by caste, gender, and religion, rather than as natural or inevitable.
- Track 3: Colonial Botany and Plantation Horror
This track treats the empire’s relationship to plants as the historical engine of vegetal horror, with colonial monoculture uprooting ecosystems and communities, and that violence resurfacing as overgrown plantations and retaliating crops. Indigo-plantation literature and tea-garden fiction from Assam and Bengal offer natural source material.
- Track 4: Plant Horror on Screen
This track turns to film studies, examining how forests, roots, and vines generate dread through cinematography and sound design rather than narration alone. South Asian horror cinema, including Tumbbad, Bulbbul, and Malayalam and Tamil Yakshi films, offers rich, under-theorised material.
- Track 5: Fungal, Parasitic, and Body Horror
The volume’s most contemporary track connects plant horror to post-pandemic infection narratives, covering mycelial and fungal horror, spore-spread, and human-plant hybridity. Contributors may draw on posthumanism and new materialism to treat the porous boundary between human and vegetal bodies.
- Track 6: Climate Apocalypse and the Vegetal Future
This track covers speculative fiction where vegetal overgrowth or plant rebellion functions as climate allegory, drawing on Albrecht’s solastalgia and Nixon’s slow violence. It welcomes both dystopian readings of nature’s revenge and more hopeful, restorative posthuman futures.
- Track 7: Gendering the Vegetal
A cross-cutting ecofeminist track theorising the persistent coding of dangerous plant figures as female, from the yakshi to the devouring garden, drawing on Plumwood and Warren’s linking of woman and nature as twin categories of otherness. It may stand alone or cross-cut Tracks 2 and 4.
Submission Guidelines
Please submit the following:
- Abstract: 300-400 words, in Word format
- A brief bio-note (up to 100 words)
- Up to 5 keywords
- Email: editors.vegetalhauntings@gmail.com
Selected contributors will be invited to submit full-length chapters of approximately 5,000–7,000 words, including references. Chapters should follow APA style. Submissions must be in MS Word (.docx) format. All chapters will be subjected to plagiarism and AI detection through Turnitin, Grammarly and Copyleaks. Once the reports are satisfactory, chapters undergo double-blind peer review.
Author Guidelines
Indexing Possibilities: Indexing possibility in Scopus/WoS is subject to overall book quality and external jury decision.
Tentative Timeline
- Abstract Submission Deadline: 15th August 2026
- Notification of Acceptance: 30th August 2026
- Full Chapter Submission: 31st October 2026
- Peer Review Feedback: 15th December 2026
- Revised Chapters Due: 15th January 2027
- Final Manuscript to Publisher: 30th January 2027
Submission and Queries
- Please send abstracts and inquiries to: editors.vegetalhauntings@gmail.com
- Please use the subject line: ‘Vegetal Hauntings – Abstract Submission – [Your Name]’
- Queries about scope, track fit, or submission procedures are welcome before the abstract
Why Publish with Rupkatha Books?
Rupkatha Books is an international open-access academic publisher committed to disseminating high-quality scholarship across the humanities and social sciences. Authors benefit from:
- International affiliations
- Rigorous double-anonymous peer review and international editorial standards
- Open-access dissemination, global discoverability and scholarly visibility
- DOI assignment for individual chapters, Crossref registration with metadata
- Copyrights kept by authors.
- Worldwide readership across academic communities
Volume Editors
Ruchika Hooda is an Assistant Professor at Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be University), Ambala. She holds a PhD (2023) and an MPhil (2020) in English from Maharshi Dayanand University. She has served as an Assistant Professor at Chandigarh University and as a Guest Skill Assistant Professor at Shri Vishwakarma Skill University. She is currently a member of the editorial board of The Criterion: An International Journal in English (ISSN: 0976-8165). She has edited the book Writing the Living World (ISBN: 978-93-81818-96-1). Her research interests include Indian English Literature, mythology, and environmental humanities, with a focus on Alternate History and Deep Ecology, emphasising eco-conscious literary inquiry.
Diksha is a PhD scholar and Assistant Professor in the Dept. of English at Chandigarh University, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in communication. Her scholarly work operates at the confluence of posthumanism, ecocriticism, trauma theory, and feminist theory, with sustained attention to contemporary fiction. With over 4.5 years of teaching experience, she is committed to intellectual rigour and pedagogical vitality and cultivates in her students a capacity for critical inquiry and meaningful engagement with literature, language, and the wider world.
by Editor | Jul 17, 2026 | Call for Book Chapters, CFP-Book-Series, Edited Volume
A Volume
Editors
Dr Swastick Sen Chowdhury
Assistant Professor & Head in the Department of Economics, Bhatter College, Dantan (Autonomous)
Dr Supratik Guha
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics at Shahid Matangini Hazra Government General Degree College for Women
To be published under the book series
Decolonial Futures: Sustainability and Indigenous Consciousness
About the Volume
The twenty-first century is witnessing profound crises of economy, ecology, and democracy. Climate change, biodiversity loss, extractivism, food insecurity, forced displacement, and widening social inequalities have exposed the limitations of dominant economic paradigms rooted in colonialism, capitalism, and endless growth. These interconnected crises call not merely for policy reform but for a fundamental rethinking of how economies are imagined, organised, and sustained.
In recent decades, scholars have increasingly turned towards concepts such as the pluriverse, Buen Vivir, Ubuntu, the commons, degrowth, regeneration, political ontology, and relationality to imagine alternatives to Eurocentric models of development. Indigenous knowledge systems have become central to these conversations, offering sophisticated understandings of reciprocity, collective stewardship, ecological interdependence, and community well-being. Rather than treating nature as a resource to be exploited, Indigenous worldviews conceive land, forests, rivers, animals, and human communities as interconnected participants in living ecological relationships.
This volume proposes Indigenous economies as a critical theoretical framework for understanding these alternative modes of existence. Indigenous economies are not simply subsistence systems or local adaptations; they represent complex social, cultural, ecological, ethical, and political formations that challenge extractive capitalism and colonial modernity. They foreground collective responsibility over individual accumulation, regeneration over extraction, and relationality over commodification.
Bringing together scholars from across the humanities, social sciences, environmental studies, law, geography, anthropology, economics, political ecology, and Indigenous studies, this volume seeks to examine how Indigenous economic thought contributes to contemporary debates on sustainability, climate justice, ecological restoration, food sovereignty, and decolonial futures.
The editors particularly welcome contributions that develop new theoretical frameworks, critically engage existing paradigms, or provide empirically grounded analyses capable of advancing international debates on decolonial political economy and ecological justice.
Suggested Themes
Contributors may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
Theoretical Perspectives
- Indigenous economies as decolonial political economy
- The pluriverse and alternative economic ontologies
- Political ontology, relationality, and Indigenous philosophies
- Buen Vivir, Ubuntu, Swaraj, and other non-Western economic imaginaries
- Commons theory and community economies
- Degrowth, post-growth, and regenerative economies
- Indigenous critiques of capitalism, neoliberalism, and extractivism
- Ecological economics from Indigenous perspectives
Ecology and Sustainability
- Food sovereignty and Indigenous food systems
- Agroecology and regenerative agriculture
- Forest economies and community conservation
- Water commons and Indigenous governance
- Biodiversity, biocultural diversity, and ecological restoration
- Climate adaptation and resilience
- Environmental justice and ecological citizenship
- Sustainable livelihoods and local innovations
- Ecology and Nature Based Solutions
Governance, Rights, and Justice
- Land rights and territorial sovereignty
- Indigenous governance and environmental law
- Resource justice and resistance to extractivism
- Community-based natural resource management
- Indigenous movements and environmental activism
- Decolonising development policy
- Legal pluralism and customary institutions
Society, Culture, and Knowledge
- Indigenous knowledge systems and knowledge sovereignty
- Oral traditions and ecological knowledge
- Indigenous entrepreneurship and cooperative economies
- Gender, care, and reproductive economies
- Youth, education, and intergenerational knowledge transmission
- Indigenous data sovereignty and digital futures
- Indigenous economies in literature, film, art, and visual culture
- Comparative Indigenous economies across the Global South
- Indigenous-informed frameworks for restoring environmental and human well-being
Integrating Indigenous Knowledge with Mainstream Health Care Practices
- Co-producing knowledge upholding Indigenous ontologies alongside mainstream tradition
- Tracing the continuum of indigenous healthscapes from ancestral balance, colonial disruption and future reconnection
- Co-designing health structures with indigenous communities
Emerging Directions
- Artificial intelligence and Indigenous knowledge
- Green transitions and Indigenous participation
- Circular and regenerative economic models
- Blue economies and Indigenous coastal communities
- Urban Indigenous economies
- Tourism, heritage, and community development
- Food Security, Health, wellbeing, and ecological futures
Submission Guidelines
- Authors are invited to submit full chapters of 5,000–8,000 words, inclusive of references.
- Stylesheet: APA
- All submissions must present original, unpublished research and will undergo double-blind peer review.
- All submissions will undergo AI-generated text testing through Grammarly, Copyleaks, etc.
- Publishing Policies: https://rupkatha.com/books/publishing-policies/
- Please send full chapters to the volume editor(s) at swastick.88@gmail.com with a CC to supratik202guha@gmail.com
Important Dates
- Full Chapter Submission: August 31 2026
- Notification of Acceptance: September 15 2026
- Expected Publication: November 2026
About the Book Series
Decolonial Futures: Sustainability and Indigenous Consciousness is an interdisciplinary book series published by Rupkatha Books. The series promotes theoretically rigorous and globally engaged scholarship that foregrounds Indigenous epistemologies, ecological wisdom, environmental justice, and decolonial approaches to sustainability. It provides a platform for innovative research exploring plural ways of knowing, being, and inhabiting the world while contributing to contemporary debates on ecological resilience, social justice, and sustainable futures.
Series Editor
Dr Pragya Shukla
Assistant Professor, Department of English Studies, Central University of Jharkhand
General Editor
Dr Tarun Tapas Mukherjee
Associate Professor, PG Department of English, Bhatter College, Dantan (Autonomous), India
by Editor | Jul 13, 2026 | Call for Book Chapters
Editor
Dr Kaniphnath Malhari Kudale
Associate Professor of English, Gurunanak Institute of Technology (GNITC), Hyderabad, Telangana, India
General Editor
Dr Tarun Tapas Mukherjee
Editor, Rupkatha Journal
About the Volume
Trauma has long been understood as a disruption of memory, identity, temporality, and subjectivity (Caruth, 1996; Herman, 1992; LaCapra, 2001; van der Kolk, 2014). Classical and contemporary trauma theory has consistently argued that traumatic experience resists direct representation, challenges the limits of language, and profoundly shapes both individual and collective consciousness (Caruth, 1996; Felman & Laub, 1992; Whitehead, 2004). However, the rapid expansion of digital technologies has transformed how trauma is experienced, narrated, and remembered. In an era increasingly characterised by algorithmic governance, ubiquitous connectivity, platform capitalism, artificial intelligence, and data surveillance, trauma is produced, mediated, and circulated through digital infrastructures in new and complex ways (Couldry & Mejias, 2019; Gillespie, 2018; Zuboff, 2019; Hoskins, 2018). The study of trauma therefore requires moving beyond exclusively psychological and literary frameworks to engage critically with the infrastructures, interfaces, and epistemologies of digital culture, where memory, affect, identity, and social relations are increasingly constituted through networked technologies and algorithmic systems (Couldry & Hepp, 2017; Hoskins, 2018; van Dijck, 2007).
Social media platforms, predictive algorithms, generative artificial intelligence, immersive virtual environments, and networked communication have fundamentally transformed the relationship between memory, affect, embodiment, and technology. Digital environments have become sites of witnessing, activism, commodification, surveillance, and affective governance, where experiences of trauma are documented, contested, and circulated across networked publics (Papacharissi, 2015; Gillespie, 2018; Couldry & Mejias, 2019). Algorithms increasingly curate visibility, shape public memory, and influence the circulation of narratives of violence, grief, vulnerability, and resilience, thereby determining which experiences become publicly recognised and which remain marginalised (van Dijck, 2007; Gillespie, 2018; Zuboff, 2019). Consequently, trauma has become both an intensely personal experience and a networked cultural phenomenon, mediated through screens, data, and algorithmic systems that reshape the production, circulation, and remembrance of suffering (Hoskins, 2018; Couldry & Hepp, 2017; Zuboff, 2019). This volume seeks to examine the complex intersections between digital technologies and traumatic experience. For this, it draws upon developments in trauma studies, affect theory, media and platform studies, digital humanities, critical algorithm studies, posthumanism, feminist theory, memory studies, science and technology studies (STS), and critical AI studies. The volume understands digital infrastructures as active participants in the production of subjectivity, emotional life, and social relations. It also considers how digital spaces can simultaneously reproduce structural inequalities while creating new possibilities for resistance, solidarity, healing, and collective remembrance.
The volume invites critical reflections on questions such as:
- How do algorithms influence affective experience?
- In what ways does artificial intelligence redefine memory, empathy, and emotional labour?
- How do digital archives preserve or erase histories of violence?
- What forms of vulnerability emerge through surveillance capitalism and platform cultures?
- How are trauma narratives transformed through digital storytelling, virtual reality, gaming, and social media?
- What ethical challenges arise from AI-generated content, deepfakes, predictive technologies, and automated decision-making?
- How might digital environments foster new practices of witnessing, care, and recovery?
Digital Trauma: Algorithms, Screens, Memory, and the Affective Self seeks to establish an interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars working across the fields of literature, cultural studies, digital humanities, media and communication studies, psychology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, education, law, artificial intelligence, gender studies, etc. Thus, the volume aims to advance contemporary scholarship on the changing nature of trauma in digitally mediated societies and to contribute to emerging debates on technology, ethics, memory, affect, and the future of human experience.
Suggested Themes
Contributors may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- Theories and conceptualisations of digital trauma
- Artificial intelligence, emotion, and affective computing
- Algorithms and the construction of the affective self
- Social media, platform cultures, and traumatic experience
- Digital memory, archives, and collective remembrance
- Cyberbullying, online harassment, and digital violence
- AI ethics, algorithmic bias, and emotional manipulation
- Digital surveillance, datafication, and psychological vulnerability
- Deepfakes, misinformation, and affective harm
- Trauma narratives in digital literature and electronic media
- Virtual reality, gaming, immersive media, and trauma
- Digital mourning, grief, and online memorialisation
- Identity formation, memory, and digital archives
- Gender, race, disability, and digital precarity
- Pandemic memories and digitally mediated communities
- Climate anxiety and environmental trauma in digital media
- Digital storytelling, testimony, and healing practices
- Posthumanism, affect theory, and artificial intelligence
- Ethical, legal, and political dimensions of digital trauma
Submission Guidelines
- Submit original, unpublished, and previously unsubmitted work.
- Chapter length: 5,000–7,000 words, inclusive of references.
- Include an abstract of 150–200 words and 5–7 keywords.
- Manuscripts should conform to the APA (7th edition) referencing style.
- Authors are required to submit a plagiarism and AI check certificate along with their chaptets.
Publication Schedule:
- Submission Deadline: August 20, 2026
- Primary Acceptance/Rejection: September 20, 2026
- Publication: October/November 2026
Author Guidelines
How to Submit: Send full papers to kkmruniversity@gmail.com with a CC to rositta.joseph@gmail.com.
Why Publish with Rupkatha Books?
Rupkatha Books is an international open-access academic publisher committed to disseminating high-quality scholarship across the humanities and social sciences. Authors benefit from:
- International affiliations
- Rigorous double-anonymous peer review and international editorial standards
- Open-access dissemination, global discoverability and scholarly visibility
- DOI assignment for individual chapters, Crossref registration with metadata
- Copyrights kept by authors.
- Worldwide readership across academic communities
About the Editor
Dr. Kaniphnath Malhari Kudale is Associate Professor of English at Guru Nanak Institutions Technical Campus (GNITC), Hyderabad, India. He holds a PhD in English from The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad. His research interests include cultural studies, folklore, trauma studies, literary theory, sociolinguistics, and interdisciplinary humanities. He has edited two scholarly volumes published by Springer Nature and has authored numerous research articles and book chapters in national and international publications. Email: kkmruniversity@gmail.com
Works Cited
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2017). The mediated construction of reality. Polity Press.
Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). The costs of connection: How data is colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism. Stanford University Press.
Felman, S., & Laub, D. (1992). Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis, and history. Routledge.
Gillespie, T. (2018). Custodians of the internet: Platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media. Yale University Press.
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery. Basic Books.
Hoskins, A. (2018). Digital memory studies: Media pasts in transition. Routledge.
LaCapra, D. (2001). Writing history, writing trauma. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
van Dijck, J. (2007). Mediated memories in the digital age. Stanford University Press.
Whitehead, A. (2004). Trauma fiction. Edinburgh University Press.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.
by Editor | Jul 9, 2026 | CFP-Book-Series
About the Series
Decolonial Futures: Sustainability and Indigenous Consciousness is an interdisciplinary book series dedicated to exploring Indigenous knowledge systems, ecological wisdom, environmental justice, and alternative futures beyond colonial paradigms. The series seeks to recenter Indigenous epistemologies, cosmologies, cultural practices, and modes of resistance that challenge extractive models of development and contribute to sustainable futures. At a time of accelerating climate crises, ecological degradation, cultural homogenisation, and displacement of Indigenous communities, there is an urgent need to engage with knowledge traditions that have long articulated sustainable relationships between humans, non-human beings, and the environment. Indigenous worldviews across the globe offer critical perspectives on stewardship, reciprocity, relationality, and ecological balance. These perspectives not only enrich academic discourse but also provide practical frameworks for addressing contemporary environmental challenges.
The series welcomes scholarly monographs, edited volumes, translations, critical editions, interdisciplinary collections, and innovative academic works that examine the intersections of decoloniality, sustainability, Indigenous cultures, environmental humanities, tribal studies, ecocriticism, climate justice, and community-based knowledge systems. The series recognizes that Indigenous communities are not merely subjects of study but vital knowledge holders whose perspectives can contribute significantly to contemporary debates on sustainability, biodiversity, climate justice, and decolonization.
Scope and Themes
The series welcomes proposals on, but not limited to, the following areas:
- Decolonial Theory, Pluriversal Futures, and Alternative Modernities
- Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Epistemologies, and Knowledge Sovereignty
- Climate Justice, Environmental Humanities, and Planetary Futures
- Land, Water, Forests, Commons, and Indigenous Environmental Governance
- Extractivism, Development, Resource Justice, and Indigenous Resistance
- Indigenous Literatures, Languages, Arts, Media, and Cultural Heritage
- Digital Futures, Artificial Intelligence, Indigenous Data Sovereignty, and Emerging Technologies
- Gender, Intersectionality, Health, Wellbeing, and Community Resilience
- Regenerative Economies, Food Sovereignty, Sustainable Livelihoods, and Ecological Innovation
- Global Indigenous Studies, Comparative Decolonialities, and South–South Dialogues
Types of Books Considered
- Research Monographs
- Edited Volumes
- Scholarly Translations
- Thematic Essay Collections
- Interdisciplinary Research Studies
- Indigenous Knowledge Documentation Projects
- Comparative and Global Indigenous Studies
- Environmental Humanities Scholarship
- Critical Introductions and Readers
Series Editor
Dr. Pragya Shukla
Dr. Pragya Shukla is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English Studies at the Central University of Jharkhand. Her areas of research include Gender Studies, Tribal Literature and Translation Studies. She has published research extensively on Indigenous and marginalised literatures and has been actively involved in translation, creative writing, and scholarly engagement with Adivasi cultural traditions. She has also served as Principal Investigator for an ICSSR-funded research project and has contributed significantly to the promotion of Indigenous literary voices through research and translation.
Sub Editor
Ms Supriya Maity
Ms Supriya Maity is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of English Studies at the Central University of Jharkhand.
Submission of Proposals
Proposal should include:
- Title and subtitle
- Abstract (300-500 words)
- Rationale and significance (150-200 words)
- Table of contents (if available)
- Chapter summaries (for monographs)
- Author/editor biography
- Timeline for completion
- Research funding, if any.
Submit Proposals and Queries to
Series Editor
Dr. Pragya Shukla
Department of English Studies, Central University of Jharkhand. Email: pragya.shukla@cuj.ac.in
by Editor | Jun 27, 2026 | Uncategorized
Stories from the Womb: A translation of the Sahitya Akademi Award-winning author Himanshi Shelat’s Garbhgatha
Bibliographic Details
- Publisher: Rupkatha Books (Imprint), Aesthetix Media Services (OPC) Private Limited; First edition ( 2025), under Rupkatha Translation Project 2025
- Language: English
- Ebook: 68 pages
- ISBN-13: 978-81-975130-5-3
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.21659/rtp04
- PDF Link: Free Access
- License: CCNC
- Dimensions: 17.6 cm x 25 cm
- Country of Origin: India
About the Book
Stories from the Womb is a powerful and deeply moving novella by acclaimed Sahitya Akademi Award-winning Gujarati writer Himanshi Shelat, brought to English readers in a sensitive translation by Dr Pratixa Parekh. Blending folklore, myth, and stark social realism, the narrative gives voice to Asti, an unborn girl who struggles to save herself from female foeticide by telling stories to her mother from within the womb. Echoing the storytelling tradition of One Thousand and One Nights, each tale uncovers hidden histories of women whose lives have been shaped by silence, patriarchy, violence, and resilience. As the stories unfold, the boundaries between memory, myth, and lived experience dissolve, compelling the mother to confront the injustices that generations of women have endured. Richly rooted in Gujarati culture yet universal in its emotional appeal, the novella explores motherhood, gender discrimination, reproductive rights, and the transformative power of storytelling. Both an important feminist intervention and a remarkable literary achievement, Stories from the Womb speaks to contemporary debates on gender justice while celebrating the enduring strength of women’s voices. This elegant translation preserves the lyrical beauty and emotional intensity of the original, making Himanshi Shelat’s extraordinary work accessible to readers across cultures and languages.
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Dr Pratixa Parekh is a translator and academician currently serving as Assistant Professor of English at Dolat-Usha Institute of Applied Sciences and Dhiru-Sarla Institute of Management & Commerce, Valsad, Gujarat, since 2006. She has presented and published research in numerous national and international forums, with interests spanning Comparative Studies, Translation Studies, and Gender Studies. Her translations of Gujarati fiction and poetry into English have appeared in esteemed journals such as Indian Literature, Sahityasetu, Translation Today, and Sahitya. Notably, her translated short story features in the anthology Redolent Rush: Contemporary Indian Short Fiction in Translation (Hawakal Publishers, Kolkata).
Dr Himanshi Shelat (b. 1947, Surat) is a renowned Gujarati author and Sahitya Akademi Award recipient, celebrated for her psychologically nuanced and socially conscious fiction. Holding an M.A. and a PhD in English, she taught at M.T.B. Arts College, Surat, until 1994. Her literary journey began in 1978, and she gained nationwide recognition with Andhari Galima Safed Tapakan (1992). Influenced by Mahasweta Devi and Jane Austen, Shelat’s writing delves into everyday realities, marginalised lives, and women’s struggles, often inspired by her social welfare work. Her oeuvre includes acclaimed story collections (Antaral, Ae Loko) and novels (Aathamo Rang, Saptadhara), as well as essays, memoirs, and literary criticism. She has also edited numerous volumes and served on the Sahitya Akademi advisory board (2013–2017). In 2024, she was honoured with the Kuvempu Rashtriya Puraskar. Married to Vinod Meghani, son of poet Jhaverchand Meghani, Shelat remains a vital voice in post-modern Gujarati literature.
