FROM LOCAL LANDSCAPES TO GLOBAL CRISIS: CLIMATE FICTION AND ECOLOGICAL FUTURITY IN INDIAN ENGLISH NOVELS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29121/JISSI.v2.i1.2026.80Keywords:
Climate Fiction, Indian English Novels, Ecocriticism, Ecological Futurity, Postcolonial Ecology, Global Climate DiscourseAbstract
This paper examines the emergence of climate fiction (cli-fi) in contemporary Indian English novels, focusing on how literary narratives engage with climate change, ecological futurity, and ethical uncertainty. Drawing on ecocriticism, speculative theory, and the environmental humanities, the study analyses selected works of Anoshirvan E. K. Kheradi and Tishani Doshi. It argues that Indian climate fiction uniquely bridges scientific discourse and cultural imagination by translating abstract climate data into lived human experience. Situating climate crisis within postcolonial histories, transnational mobility and ethical responsibility, Indian cli-fi foregrounds justice, memory and cultural continuity. The paper contends that Indian climate fiction expands the scope of global cli-fi by offering alternative narrative models that emphasize resilience, relational ethics, and collective accountability. In doing so, it reaffirms literature’s critical role in imagining ecological futures and confronting planetary crisis.
References
Adamson, J., Evans, T., and Stein, R. (Eds.). (2002). The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy. University of Arizona Press.
Ballard, J. G. (1962). The Drowned World. Victor Gollancz.
Baviskar, A. (2004). In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts Over Development in the Narmada Valley. Oxford University Press.
Buell, L. (2001). Writing for an Endangered World: Literature, Culture, and Environment in the U.S. and Beyond. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674029057 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674029057
Buell, L. (2005). The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Blackwell Publishing.
Bullard, R. D. (2000). Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality (3rd ed.). Westview Press.
DeLoughrey, E., and Handley, G. B. (Eds.). (2011). Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195394429.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195394429.001.0001
Doshi, T. (2016). Small Days and Nights. Bloomsbury India.
Gaard, G. (2011). Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-Placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism. Feminist Formations, 23(2), 26–53. https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2011.0017 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2011.0017
Garrard, G. (2012). Ecocriticism (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203806838 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203806838
Ghosh, A. (2016). The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226323176.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226323176.001.0001
Glotfelty, C. (1996). Introduction: Literary Studies In an Age of Environmental Crisis. In C. Glotfelty and H. Fromm (Eds.), The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology ( xv–xxxvii). University of Georgia Press.
Guha, R. (1989). The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. Oxford University Press.
Guha, R., and Martínez-Alier, J. (1997). Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South. Earthscan.
Haraway, D. J. (2008). When Species Meet. University of Minnesota Press.
Heise, U. K. (2008). Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335637.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335637.001.0001
Heise, U. K. (2016). Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226358338.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226358338.001.0001
Huggan, G., and Tiffin, H. (2015). Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315768342 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315768342
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2021). Climate change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
Joshi, R. (2018). The Last Jet-Engine Laughs. Penguin Random House India.
Leopold, A. (1949). A Sand County Almanac. Oxford University Press.
Markandya, A., and Halsnæs, K. (2012). Climate Change and Sustainable Development: Prospects for Developing Countries. Earthscan.
Nixon, R. (2011). Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674061194 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2jbsgw
Plumwood, V. (2002). Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason. Routledge.
Robinson, K. S. (2017). New York 2140. Orbit.
Rose, D. B., Van Dooren, T., Chrulew, M., Cooke, S., Kearnes, M., and O'Gorman, E. (2012). Thinking Through the Environment, Unsettling the Humanities. Environmental Humanities, 1(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3609940 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3609940
Scudder, T. (2005). The Future of Large Dams: Dealing with Social, Environmental, Institutional and Political Costs. Earthscan.
Shiva, V. (1988). Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development. Zed Books.
Trexler, A. (2015). Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of Climate Change. University of Virginia Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt13x1r99 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt13x1r99
Tuan, Y.-F. (1977). Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. University of Minnesota Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Menka Singh, Dr. Anil Kumar Jaiswal (Author)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
With the licence CC-BY, authors retain the copyright, allowing anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute, and/or copy their contribution. The work must be properly attributed to its author.
It is not necessary to ask for further permission from the author or journal board.
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.



















