climate fiction

“On the afternoon of 17 March 1978, the weather took an odd turn in north Delhi… that day dark clouds appeared suddenly and there were squalls of rain. Then followed an even bigger surprise: a hailstorm”. In his book The Great Derangement:Climate Change and the Unthinkable, celebrated author and Jnanpith award winner, Amitav Ghosh writes about an afternoon in Delhi when the capital was hit by a hailstorm. The event took the nation by surprise — glass panes were shattered, unsuspecting people were severely wounded by…

The category of climate fiction, or cli-fi, arose in this millennium, but several older works of fiction have tackled the subject of climate change and its effects. Prescient examples include JG Ballard’s The Drowned World (1962) and Ursula K Le Guin’s The New Atlantis (1975). Trees in the Surrealist Garden in Hamilton Gardens, New Zealand. (Shutterstock) 432pp; Granta Books (Granta Books) In their time, these works might have sounded far-fetched or futuristic, but contemporary cli-fi often feels…

Pod features a diverse cast of marine creatures with their own distinct cultures, languages, and social hierarchies. How did you create such believable characters, specifically dolphins, particularly in terms of their social and cultural dynamics?  Author Laline Paull (Courtesy the publisher) When you’re looking at social animals be they dolphin or human, there’s some kind of organisation and hierarchy. We’re used to seeing leaders and followers, (social media capitalises on this even more). We understand that…