Building from his acclaimed anthology Tales of Two Americas, writer and editor John Freeman draws together a group of our greatest writers from around the world to help us see how the environmental crisis is hitting some of the most vulnerable communities where they live.
... a mosaic-like compendium...full of such varied writing that there’s no opportunity for cliché to take hold. Some surprising connections flow through its different parts, however ... The sheer variety of approaches in the book reflect something of that frenzied feeling; the collection takes you on a joltingly rapid journey across the world (India, Bangladesh, Hawaii, Iceland). But that eclecticism is also what prevents A Tale of Two Planets from sinking in the kind of ideological mud which bogs down [other books], and a reminder that excellent environmental writing can come from literally anywhere—not just the frozen tundras of macho adventure-stories.
Mariana Enriquez tells the story of Riachuelo, a poisoned river in Argentina. Mohammed Hanif contemplates the millions of overlooked Pakistanis displaced by floods. Eritrean refugee Sulaiman Addonia observes: 'Refugees and the earth face the same marginalization, the same neglect, the same abuse.'Andri Snær Magnason charts the disappearance of glaciers in Iceland; Anuradha Roy considers the shrinking ice in the Himalayas, the source of water for millions. Futuristic tales by Pitchaya Sudbanthad and Sayaka Murata envision the elite cocooned from environmental ravages. Lauren Groff’s Florida story reckons with wastefulness and the vulnerability of the wild. Edwidge Danticat writes of toxic governmental corruption and a trash-fouled Haitian beach. Joy Williams protests ecocidal big-game hunting; Gaël Faye mourns lost forests and fireflies in Burundi. Yoked environmental and humanitarian crises in Egypt, Mexico, Hawaii, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and beyond are brought forward in masterful works elegiac, angry, and ironic in Freeman’s clarion global chorus.
This anthology showcases personal responses to climate change through literature ...This work will suit readers curious about the long-standing and wide-ranging effects of climate change, as lived and experienced by writers around the world.
