Prasad had been a leading member of the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP; established in 1962) since 1967. An international biographer of the KSSP has described it as “a grassroots movement emphasizing the role of science as a vehicle for self-sufficiency and popular participation in development, libertarian educational approaches, dignity of all people, appropriate technology and a bottom-up approach to development…they see science as a vehicle for transformative education”. KSSP members consist of experts in multiple fields and progressive activists. A professor of botany, Prasad was the leading biologist among them.

Its direct involvement in environmental protection in Kerala dates back to 1970 when the KSSP started a movement to highlight air and water pollution in the industrial area of ​​Eloor near Kochi. Many public and private sector factories in the region were polluting the Periyar River and the air in the region. The first initiative to stop this pollution was taken by the Kochi Science Society. The movement reached the KSSP via Prasad – perhaps Parishad’s first direct involvement in an environmental protection movement. In the mid-1960s, NV Krishna Warrier, one of the founding leaders of the KSSP, became involved in activism as an individual. But following the Kochi movement, KSSP became directly involved in environmental activism.

In 1977, the government of Kerala went ahead with a plan to build a hydroelectric project on the Kunthi River which runs through Silent Valley, the evergreen rainforest in the Palakkad region. The dam had to stand inside the forest itself. KSSP was initially reluctant to get involved in any resistance against the project because it believed in the need to generate electricity for people’s well-being. At the request of Satish Chandran Nair, an ecologist who had traveled extensively inside Silent Valley to study its ecological importance, Prasad visited the rainforest in 1977. He was convinced of the importance of preserving this rich treasure. of biodiversity. The submergence of 830 hectares of forest land, from which the streams and tributaries of the Kunthi originate, would have destroyed the riparian ecosystem. After this visit in 1977, Prasad began publishing his findings in local scientific and literary journals.

At the camp of KSSP members held in Kalady in 1977, a resolution drafted by Prasad asking the organization to oppose the project was presented. Prasad was not present at the meeting. Camp attendees did not approve of the resolution but decided to investigate the matter. A committee consisting of Prasad, MP Parameswaran and KP Kannan among others has been formed. Their 1978 report, “The Silent Valley Hydroelectric Project: A Techno-Economic and Socio-Political Assessment” persuaded the KSSP to join the resistance movement to save the Silent Valley. So, in a sense, Prasad’s first visit to the Silent Valley was a turning point in the history of KSSP.

KSSP is a left-wing organization. At a time when left-wing parties strongly supported the project, it was difficult to oppose it for ecological reasons. In the 1998 EPW, historian Ramachandra Guha described the KSSP as an “ecological Marxist” organization.

The late poet Sugathakumari wrote that she was drawn to the Silent Valley movement after reading an article by Prasad in Mathrubhumi. She was among the poets and writers who, under the leadership of NV Krishna Warrier, formed an organization in 1980 to save the Silent Valley. It was a unique movement in the history of the world, where writers came together to resist the destruction of the environment. The only other similar example that I know of is that of the “Group of 100” founded by the famous Mexican writer Homero Aridjis in 1985.
Prasad has published a few volumes aimed at educating civil society in Kerala on environmental issues. Among them is his 2012 treatise, “Climate Change and Ecosystems.” At the height of heated debate over the Madhav Gadgil Committee’s report on the Western Ghats in 2013, he teamed up with environmental lawyer Harish Vasudevan to publish another volume, “Western Ghats: Gadgil-Kasturirangan Reports and Reality.”

Activism and writing are not always the same. The activist must be among the people, organizing and motivating them while collecting the available scientific facts. A writer must confine himself to his study for long hours to research, read, think and write. KSSP founders and readers like PT Bhaskara Panicker, Krishna Warrier, MP Parameswaran, Prasad and many others have combined these skills. Their scientific rigor and wisdom are the foundations on which KSSP is built.

The excavation of hundreds of millions of tons of soil, sand, gravel and granite for the K-Rail project will jeopardize the biodiversity of the state, which has faced climate-related disasters since 2017. The presence de Prasad would have been critical at this point. He will be greatly missed by those in civil society who continue to fight for an environmentally sustainable, socially just and truly democratic Kerala.

Madhusoodanan, a literary critic, author of an award-winning Sahitya Akademi on the comprehensive environmental history of Kerala, and a former IAS officer

American poet Amanda Gorman reads her commissioned poem “The Hill We Go Up” during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the United States Capitol in Washington on January 20, 2021. (AP Photo / Patrick Semansky, Pool, File)

NEW YORK (AP) – Books and authors counted in 2021, sometimes more than the industry wanted.

A 22-year-old poet has become a star of literature. The enthusiasm of young people on TikTok has helped revive Colleen Hoover’s “It Ends With Us” and other novels released years earlier. Conservatives pushed for restricting books allowed in classrooms at a time when activists were working to expand them. And the government has decided that the merger of two of the country’s largest publishers could damage an invaluable cultural resource: authors.

“Everything looks very magnified,” says award-winning novelist Jacqueline Woodson, whose books have been challenged by officials in Texas and elsewhere.

“One day I hear Texas is trying to ban (Woodson’s novels) ‘Red at the Bone’ and ‘Brown Girl Dreaming’, and the next moment we see Amanda Gorman speaking the truth to power.” . Maybe it’s because of social media or the pandemic, but everything looks a lot more intense, ”she says.

Sales were strong in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and increased in 2021. The number of books sold through the end of November is up 10% from 2020 and 20% from last year. pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks about 85% of the print market. The Association of American Publishers reported $ 7.8 billion in revenue for commercial books in the first 10 months of 2021, a 14% jump from a year ago.

“You don’t hear a lot these days that people don’t read anymore,” said Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, the nation’s independent bookstore business group.

A year after the ABA feared hundreds of stores would close due to the pandemic, Hill says membership is growing, with more than 150 new stores opening and some 30 closings.

Fiction was particularly strong in 2021 as BookScan’s sales jumped over 20% from the previous year, driven by everything from TikTok’s Book Club and Reese Witherspoon to a wave of manga and a wave of literary bestsellers which included “Crossroads” by Jonathan Franzen and “Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Anthony Doerr.

Penguin Random House US CEO Madeline McIntosh called the popularity of fiction “the biggest sign that we have long-term growth for the industry.”

“It’s one thing when you pick up books when you want to learn how to do something or keep up with the news, but it’s a different impulse when you pick up a book because you want to spend your hours reading. And that’s what we see with fiction, ”she said.

With Donald Trump no longer in the White House, sales of political books have fallen by nearly 25%, according to BookScan. But the world of books has become more politicized – starting with the question of who could or should publish the former president’s memoir.

Multi-million dollar deals for presidents are a tradition. But New York editors were uncomfortable with Trump ahead of the Jan.6 siege of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters and have since openly distanced themselves from him and his allies like Senator Josh Hawley, whose “Tyranny of great technology ”was abandoned by Simon & Schuster.

In response, a network of independent conservative publishers has sprung up, ranging from established entities like Regnery, who acquired Hawley’s book, to new companies like All Seasons Press or the Daily Wire’s DW Books. . Trump’s first post-White House book project, the ‘Our Journey Together’ photo compilation, will be published by Winning Team Publishing, founded by his son Donald Trump Jr. and campaign aide Sergio Gor.

Throughout 2021, books have been in the news. The year was barely three weeks old when millions of people watched Gorman become the country’s best-known poet and cultural phenomenon. His calm and energetic reading of his commissioned work “The Hill We Go Up” was a highlight of President Joe Biden’s inauguration. This has earned her recognition more in line with fashion or movie stars, including a contract with IMG Models and coverage for Vogue. A hardcover edition of “The Hill We Climb” sold hundreds of thousands of copies, although readers could find the text for free online.

Gorman’s appearance at the inauguration was made possible by First Lady Jill Biden, who in 2017 attended a reading Gorman gave to the Library of Congress as the country’s Young Poet Laureate.

Countless authors, famous and unknown, have found unexpected support in the person of Attorney General Merrick Garland. In November, the Justice Department announced it would take legal action to block Penguin Random House’s purchase of Simon & Schuster, the first time in years that the government has attempted to halt a major consolidation of the ‘editing. The DOJ’s objection was rooted as much in art as it was in commerce – the fear that writers wouldn’t make enough money to write.

“Books have shaped American public life throughout our country’s history, and authors are the lifeblood of book publishing in America,” Garland said. “If the world’s largest book publisher is allowed to acquire one of its biggest rivals, it will have unprecedented control over this important industry. American authors and consumers will pay the price for this anti-competitive merger – less advance payments for authors and ultimately less books and less variety for consumers.

Woodson says she and other writers were blown away by the DOJ’s announcement and recalls thinking, “Wait, they’re speaking for us!”

Debates on literature have never been more heated than in classrooms and libraries across the country.

Grassroots activists such as # disrupttexts.org have pushed teachers to diversify the curriculum with novels such as “Another Brooklyn” by Woodson, “Salvage the Bones” by Jesmyn Ward and “The Round House” by Louise Erdrich. Independent bookstores have made efforts to donate free copies of the book edition of the Pulitzer-winning “1619 Project”, which places slavery at the center of American history, to schools. The book sold over 100,000 copies in its first two weeks on sale, according to BookScan.

Meanwhile, an advertisement for the race-winning Republican candidate for Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin featured a white conservative activist alleging her son had been traumatized by an assigned high school text, “Well- loved, “Toni Morrison’s novel about a black, Pulitzer Prize winner. woman who had fled slavery and murdered her daughter rather than allow her to be captured.

Dozens of bills across the country have been proposed or passed that call for restrictions on books deemed immoral or unpatriotic. Texas state lawmaker Republican Matt Krause sent a 16-page spreadsheet to the Texas Education Agency listing more than 800 books he deemed worthy of possible banning, including works by Woodson , Ta-Nehisi Coates and Margaret Atwood. Nine novels by award-winning young author Julie Anne Peters, whose stories often feature LGBT characters, have been cited.

“I think one of the reasons this is happening is that the books have stamina,” Peters said. “You always remember the great books you read. They are so influential, especially the ones at school. Everything else is so fleeting and changing. But once a book is there and it’s available and it represents our history and our culture, it becomes a historical reference to which you return.