From Creation to Crumbling: Environmental Decline and Artistic Resistance in Anuradha Roy’s The Earthspinner

This article explores how Roy employs the metaphor of clay and the motif of pottery to articulate an urgent ecological vision rooted in artistic resistance. Anuradha Roy’s The Earthspinner is a poignant meditation on the interwoven threads of environmental destruction, artistic creation, and sociopolitical strife. Through the life of Elango, a potter striving to shape beauty from a crumbling world, Roy presents an eco-critical narrative that underscores both environmental decline and the resilience of artistic agency. Using principles of eco-criticism and deep ecology, this article examines the tensions between tradition and modernity, creation and destruction, and humanity and nature. The article argues that The Earthspinner transcends a personal or regional tale to deliver a universal message about our collective responsibility toward the planet and the creative forces that resist its degradation.