ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN UZMA ASLAM KHAN’S NOVELS ‘TRESPASSING’ AND ‘THINNER THAN SKIN’

Abstract

This paper presents a reading of Uzma Aslam Khans’s novels Trespassing and Thinner than Skin and illustrates the process of growing urbanization and life in metropolitan cities and its deleterious impact on human habitats and communities. It attempts to critique the reshaping and remaking of Pakistani lives and culture under the influence of growing consumerism, technology, capitalism, and resultant migration of indigenous communities to urban spaces. The novels highlight numerous forms of pollution such as land, water, and air pollution and overuse of sea resources caused by the ever-growing industrial commerce and expanding urbanization and demonstrate how unequal development can impact human domination along the lines of environment, gender, and ethnicity. The novels provide an intimate understanding of the urban ecology of contemporary Pakistani society and can be regarded as emphatic voice from the Global South as they perform the much-needed task of raising environmental consciousness in the contemporary world.