Abstract

In his important article “Environmentalism and Postcolonialism,” Rob Nixon describes the relationship between the two areas of literary studies as one of reciprocal indifference or mistrust. The former, which often manifests itself as a de facto offshoot of American studies, is mainly silent about the latter. Postcolonial texts that indirectly tackle environmental issues are better “left” to postcolonial critics to deal with. The irony is that postcolonial critics are most likely to ignore or minimize an environmentalist approach, often regarded as irrelevant, elitist, imperialistic, or, if I might add, inconsequential, less urgent than the sociopolitical, cultural, and economic crises of the postcolonial state. Such indifference and mistrust are both unnecessary and restrictive to both disciplines. This article conducts an eco-inflected reading of Egyptian author Sonallah Ibrahim’s novel August Star. The reading aims at revealing that cross-fertilizations between postcolonialism and environmentalism are both possible and mutually advantageous. Unique and often ironic circumstances have led the High Dam, whose official and unofficial history is recounted by Ibrahim, to be at once an icon of the postcolonial era and environmental (in)justice; it has represented neocolonialism or decolonization, an environmental disaster or an engineering miracle, depending on which side of the ideological spectrum one embraces. This ambivalent nature of the dam creates interesting and often conflicting views that illuminate both environmental and postcolonial issues.