ABSTRACT. Kamala Das / Surayya (1934–2009) was one of the most sensitive yet outspoken of the Indian writers writing in English. She has been read most often as a feminist, whose poetic themes were primarily concerned with herself – her own body and mind, and the politics of what it meant to be a woman. This paper explores a hitherto unexplored angle to her writing, the ecofeminist one. She looks at landscape and the people and their culture through an empathetic and non-dualistic lens which makes her poetry uniquely sensitive and inclusive.

Keywords: feminism; ecofeminism; Indian writing; poetry; women’s writing; self and the other

Usha VT (2020) Many ecologies of the self: inner and outer spaces in the poetry of Kamala Das / Surayya – an ecofeminist reading. Creativity 4(1): 341–356. doi:10.22381/C4120214