When the world gets worse: Form and feeling in Australian climate fiction

Abstract

In a political context of climate inaction, Australian fiction writers have increasingly focused on the emergency; drawing attention to how the political and environmental processes underway might play out and exploring attendant emotions. The novel form – with its foregrounding of private feelings and individual agency, and its historical alignment with the development of the extractive capitalism it may wish to critique – occupies an ambivalent position as a tool to bring about change. If the task is to refigure the social imaginary towards interconnection with all forms of life, is the novel an inadequate means of social engagement? I hope to make the case – by referencing debates in climate change literature and through discussion of Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser (2021) and This Devastating Fever by Sophie Cunningham (2022) – that writers are using the distinctive capacities of the novel to think through contemporary challenges. These novels, distinct in tone and narrative content, both treat climate change as inextricable from other forces – such as colonialism and misogyny – and emphasise interconnectedness with other beings. Through a commitment to play, via formal experimentation and humour, they help readers to engage with the intellectual and emotional challenges of a changing world.