ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the relationship between ecofeminism and climate fiction (cli-fi) through an ecocritical reading of three contemporary cli-fi narratives: Alexis Wright’s novel Carpentaria (2006), Michelle Law’s short story Bu Liao Qing (2020), and Zoya Patel’s short story Displaced (2020). Beginning with a brief definition of the genre of cli-fi and following that with a critique of the genre from ecofeminist standpoints, Iris Ralph comments on the three texts according to how they measure up against that ecofeminist critique and so according to how the texts more or less successfully break with mainstream cli-fi production, for the ecofeminist charge is that mainstream cli-fi is masculinist, or literary production that indulges in and fantasizes about the planetary future—about the planet as it promises to be and already is being terrifically impacted by climate change—more so than it shows any alarm about or any commitment to slowing and even reversing climate change, and, in addition, mainstream cli-fi subtly disparages environmental activism. In the instances of mainstream cli-fi narratives that do reflect a genuine concern for tackling climate change, these also are disappointing insofar as hope for the future is represented in the figure of the human unborn progeny, a wish that betrays anthropocentric desires for futurity.
