How ‘eco‑dystopian’ novels from Asia and Africa are pushing the boundaries of fiction

Speculative and futuristic visions of environmental calamity are being imagined globally through environmental fiction. Eco-dystopian novels can help people process their fears or mourn the loss of a more stable climate.

My forthcoming book, Nature’s Return, shows that while anti-environmentalism is gaining traction in the West, the diversity and urgency of environmental visions from across Africa and Asia are coming into view.

Here are my favourite examples from China and Taiwan, Nigeria and India.

China and Taiwan

“You are bugs” is the sobering message of the aliens in Liu Cixin’s bestselling trilogy, Remembrance of Earth’s Past. Series two of Netflix’s adaptation, titled after the first volume, The Three Body Problem, is scheduled for release in late 2026. Liu’s vision of environmental retribution is anchored in a visceral portrait of Mao’s so-called “war against nature”, which reshaped the environment through things like mass irrigation and deforestation to boost economic production.

The trilogy is a leading example of a wide-ranging ecological turn in Chinese culture and Chinese science fiction. As the cultural critics Yue Zhou and Xi Liu explain, the story routinely takes aim at “rampant pollution, water shortage, natural resources depletion, overpopulation and electronic waste”.

Cara Healy, a professor of Chinese Studies at Wabash College in Indiana, US, argues that “for centuries, Chinese intellectuals wrote about the past as a way...

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