Home > Catalogue > English Literature > 10 | 2023 > Memory Carriers and Intergenerational Kinship in Indigenous Climate Change Fiction
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Memory Carriers and Intergenerational Kinship in Indigenous Climate Change Fiction

Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (2013) and Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017)

Teresa Botelho    Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal    

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abstract

The concept of anthropogenic climate change, in its most simplistic interpretation, implies that all humanity is collectively responsible for the present threats to planetary sustainability. This unquestioned discourse of collective responsibility also facilitates frames of understanding that isolate older generations and burden them as a whole, blaming them for the construction of a life model that has led to the present crisis, a discourse challenged by postcolonial and environmental justice literature and in particular by Indigenous fiction. A discussion of two novels, The Swan Book (2013) by the Waanyi Australian writer Alexis Wright, and The Marrow Thieves (2017) by the Métis Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline, scrutinises how they create alternative frames presenting older adults in scenarios of environmental devastation as carriers of memory that are agents in the construction of the spirit of resilience and resistance of young characters.

Published
Feb. 6, 2024
Accepted
Nov. 25, 2023
Submitted
Sept. 18, 2023
Language
EN

Keywords: DystopiaIntergenerational GapEnvironmental JusticeIndigenous LiteratureClimate Change Fiction

Copyright: © 2023 Teresa Botelho. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.