Saumya Roy, Journalist, Author, and the 2022 Nirupama Chatterjee Teaching Fellow at Berkeley Journalism
Geeta Anand, Dean, Professor of Journalism, and Robert A. Peck Chair, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Institute for South Asia Studies, The Center on Contemporary India, Graduate School of Journalism
The Center on Contemporary India invites you to a talk by Saumya Roy, Journalist, Author, and the 2022 Nirupama Chatterjee Teaching Fellow at Berkeley Journalism, on her new book, Castaway Mountain: Love and Loss Among the Wastepickers of Mumbai.
About the Book
Estimates project that the world will produce 6 million tons of solid waste per day by 2025.
The trash of Mumbai, India funnels to a literal trash mountain at the dump site of Deonar, where a tragic blaze wreaked havoc and clouded the sky with toxic smoke in 2016, impacting the lives of millions. Beyond the harms to our planet, there is a human story behind this mountainous terrain of hazardous waste and global overconsumption—a story of both tragedy and redemption, captured powerfully in the new debut book Castaway Mountain.
In a gripping, beautiful blend of creative prose and reporting, journalist Saumya Roy offers a stunning view of human life and connection that persists in the wake of the world’s waste. Castaway Mountain explores the lives of a handful of Mumbai’s 15,000 waste-pickers, who make a living plucking recyclables and usable materials from the excess trash. Through their experience, Roy presents a compelling portrait of our world—of a glittering and wondrous humanity worth saving from our collective waste.
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DATE: Tuesday, March 1, 2022
TIME: 9 am Berkeley | Calculate your local time
REGISTER HERE
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Speaker Bio:
Saumya Roy is the author of Castaway Mountain: Love and Loss Among the Waste Pickers of Mumbai a narrative non fiction account of the garbage landfill of Mumbai. The book is among NPR’s Best Loved books of 2021. She has written for Forbes India magazine, Mint newspaper, Outlook magazine, wsj.com, bbc.com, thewire.in and Bloomberg News among other publications. She also co- founded and ran Vandana Foundation to support the livelihoods of Mumbai’s poorest micro entrepreneurs by giving small, low interest loans. She received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, Blue Mountain Center, Carey Institute for Global Good and Sangam House to write Castaway Mountain. She has Masters Degrees in journalism from Northwestern University and Mumbai’s Sophia College, where she teaches magazine writing.
Saumya Roy is the 2022 Nirupama Chatterjee Teaching Fellow at Berkeley Journalism, leading the India Reporting Project, which includes guiding a student trip to India during spring break.
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The event is FREE and OPEN to the public.
Registration opens January 18. Register online by March 1.
isas@berkeley.edu, 510-642-3608
ISAS Staff, isas@berkeley.edu, 510-642-3608
TICKET INFO
This is a FREE event.
Tax-deductible donations from the J-School community help make this possible.
No tickets required