Pandemics, Floods, and Giant Mosquitoes: Two Works of Latin American Climate Fiction

Abstract

Although it is often considered a minor genre, science fiction is one of the literary genres with the greatest potential to address climate change. This essay argues that, in the face of the prevailing sense of helplessness today, speculative and fiction literature offers the possibility of imagining new ways of inhabiting our planet and building alternatives to the existing socio-economic model. Therefore, this essay analyzes two works of Latin American science fiction—Michel Nieva's novel La infancia del mundo and Andrea Chapela's short story "Como quien oye llover"—with the aim of studying how the climate crisis is addressed in contemporary literature from this region. These two works problematize the environmental crisis from an intersectional perspective, intertwining issues such as social class and gender. Thus, this essay reflects on the relationship between the climate crisis, capitalism, the notion of progress, and the way we imagine the future.