Muse@NLS Library | Seminar on ‘Fiction, Justice and the Law’

NLSIU’s Library Committee is organising a seminar on ‘Fiction, Justice and the Law’ by debut novelist Sonali Prasad on Saturday, August 23, 2025.

Drawing on Sonali’s ‘Glass Bottom,’ the seminar will examine the consequences of environmental harm, the persecution of environmental defenders, the state’s power over the individual, and catastrophes that push beyond existing legal frameworks. Framing the planetary crisis as a crisis of conscience, and engaging with the tensions between natural law and human law, participants will explore how literature and law together illuminate the boundaries of justice.

The seminar will take place in the NLSIU Library Basement at 11 AM. Attendees are invited to bring a legal case or ruling that resonates with these themes and to contribute to a live, collaborative discussion that bridges jurisprudence, ethics and storytelling. NLS student Niveditha Prasad (Vth year BA LLB) will moderate the event. The seminar is open to all NLS students.

About the Author

Sonali Prasad was born and raised in New Delhi, India. Her journalism has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, The Washington Post, Hakai Magazine, Quartz, and Esquire Singapore. She has been awarded a Pulitzer Travelling Fellowship, Global TED Fellowship, MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship, Logan Science Journalism Fellowship and a Jan Michalski Writing Residency, among other grants and honours. Her debut novel, Glass Bottom, was published with Picador India (2024) as their “literary debut of the year”. It was listed in Telegraph India’s ‘The page turners of 2024: Fiction’ among esteemed writers such as Samantha Harvey, Jhumpa Lahiri and Percival Everett, and was shortlisted for the Kalinga Literary Festival Book Award in the category ‘Debut (English)’.