The Climate of Fiction: Eco-Criticism and Environmental Imagination in 21st Century Literature

Abstract

Globalization and climate change have been extreme in causing environmental crises and cultural responses relating to the world today, which have led to eco-criticism as an essential structure of looking at literature in the times of the Anthropocene. The paper argues that climate fiction, postcolonial ecologies and indigenous worldviews provide an opportunity to discuss the role of environmental imagination in the postcolonial world in shaping modern narratives. It examines the textual strategies that creators use to develop ecological awareness, embody anxieties about climate change, and accuse humanity of anthropocentricity, through the analysis of chosen pieces of literature: speculative fiction and realist novels. In the argument presented through the study it is postulated that literature does not only reflect ecological crises but also engages in building ethical paradigms that lead to sustainable thinking. Based on the view of eco-criticism, the study helps understand how literary works are used as cultural means to imagine more ecologically friendly futures and discourage the systems that allow exploitation and extend the dialogue about climate change to the rest of the society. Finally, the paper frames 21 st -century writing as a place of opposing, envisioning, and supporting the larger trajectory toward environmental justice and sustainability.