A young Bahrain-based author is ringing the warning bells with his first-ever novel to save the planet from its most impending disaster ... climate change.
NOMD: Will Five Teens Save The Day for Planet Earth? written by Arnab Sengupta is a climate science fiction thriller that was recently released on Amazon, a year after the author’s debut book – a poetry anthology called Iridescence – 50 Poems by a Teenage Dreamer.
The book’s timely release comes at the heels of the COP26 2021 United Nations climate change conference, where more than 100 countries committed to a series of initiatives to cut emissions and avoid land degradation.
Bahrain, for its part, committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2060, while quadrupling its mangrove coverage, doubling the number of trees and directly investing in new carbon capture technologies.
Over the last decade, impending climate change has sparked protests led by a new generation of young climate activists, including Swedish 18-year-old Greta Thunberg, Indian Disha Ravi and American Xiye Bastida.
With his novel, Arnab is doing his part raising awareness and funds to combat the ongoing climate crisis, while reminding his peers that saving the planet is a matter of survival now.
“When we think of heroes, we think of men and women with capes but today, they wear lab coats, not capes, and are mere 13-year-old teenagers,” the 15-year-old told GulfWeekly.
“In NOMD, which stands for Naturally Occurring Manmade Disasters, they are up against the International Criminal Syndicate - maleficent, malevolent beings of darkness who want to destroy the planet using human-induced ‘natural disasters’.”
Arnab penned the 10-chapter book within two weeks shortly after getting to Bahrain two years ago, during a break between his studies.
Editing, illustrating and creating the cover art has taken the major chunk of the last two years, during which time the Bhavans Bahrain Indian School student published his debut book.
“The book was written during the abundant free time that I got during my break, and was slowly built piece-by-piece where it felt like I was simply an onlooker to an alternate universe, and that I was just writing what I saw in my journal,” he added.
“My favourite part of the story is the willingness of the characters to fight the stereotypes and misconceptions about youth, and them trying to save the world, by not only using tactful and scientific measures, but also by changing how most of us think.”
Climate activists like B Sustainable Group chief executive and Future of Earth magazine editor James Murphy, as well as Bahrain-based environmentalist Kai Miethig encouraged Arnab and wrote forewords to the story.
Arnab credits his father Debashish as his primary editor and coach.
The Grade 10-student will be donating 50 per cent of the proceeds from book sales to #TeamSeas, an international initiative to remove 30 million pounds (13.6m kilogrammes) of trash from the world’s oceans.
As for his writing, Arnab is not taking a break and is already working on another book of poetry, after Iridescence topped Amazon’s bestseller list for Children and Young Adult’s Poetry within five days of its release.
NOMD: Will Five Teens Save the Day for Planet Earth? is now available on Amazon.
