‘Ecoceanic’: Speculative fiction anthology from the global South reveals climate change injustices

Tarun K Saint and Francesco Verso’s ecologically focused speculative fiction anthology Ecoceanic: Southern Flows is an excellent addition to the growing body of English language publications of speculative fiction from the Global South. In the last five years, works from non-western science fiction and speculative fiction traditions – including diasporic authors – have become available to English language readers.

Collections like the two-volume New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color (2019) and New Suns 2: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color (2023) edited by Nisi Shawl and Africa Risen (2022) edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight, novels such SB Divya’s Meru (2023) and Tade Thompson’s Far from the Light of Heaven (2021), alongside movies like The Wandering Earth (China, 2019) and Kalki 2898 AD (India, 2024) have justifiably demanded the attention of the global readers and viewers. Among many of these works the dire issue of climate change and its concomitant dangers have stood out prominently.

Climate change and socio-economic injustices

Although in The Great Derangement (2016) Amitav Ghosh claimed that literature has not done enough to foreground climate change and its effects, science and speculative fiction have kept the issue front and centre for a long time. This is especially true of the works of the last decade, which have strongly emphasised...

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