Anthropocene Realism - (Environmental Cultures) by John Thieme (Paperback)

About the Book

The book considers the poetics of twenty-first century climate change fiction, focusing on realism and exploring the realist mode as a means to engage readers with what is without doubt one of, if not the, most pressing problem of our day: climate change

Book Synopsis

Examining the challenges faced by novelists writing realist fiction in the age of climate change, this open access book considers the various ways in which contemporary writers have evolved new and transformed modes of realism to grapple with the problems of living on an endangered planet.

Focusing on fiction set in the 'long present' - a term used to cover the actual present, the near future and an historic past that interacts with the present - Thieme argues that long-present realism negates the possibility of deferring engagement with the climate crisis on the grounds that it is a future threat.

Thieme examines work by twelve novelists: Margaret Atwood, James Bradley, Amitav Ghosh, Helon Habila, Liz Jensen, Barbara Kingsolver, Ian McEwan, Richard Powers, Annie Proulx, Indra Sinha, Antii Tuomainen and Wu Ming-Yi. He provides important new insights into the methods these writers use to convey the urgency of the climate crisis and how their work can inform our understandings of the Anthropocene activity that endangers life on Earth.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Knowledge Unlatched.

Review Quotes

"Thieme's close readings are many, and all contribute a specific insight into the text examined. His reading makes us think about the stakes of Anthropocene realism. Consistently, he provides convincing evidence of a new generation of writers innovating the novel genre and expanding the scope of literary realism." --Journal of Modern Literature

About the Author

John Thieme is currently Senior Fellow at the University of East Anglia, UK. He previously held Chairs at the University of Hull and London South Bank University and his previous books include Postcolonial Con-Texts: Writing Back to the Canon, Postcolonial Literary Geographies, Postcolonial Literary Geographies, and studies of Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul and R.K. Narayan.