Daughter of bad times

Climate fiction—literature dealing explicitly with anthropogenic climate change—gives insight into the ethical and social ramifications of this unparalleled environmental crisis. But writing about climate change often means engaging with the problem at a global level, where countries like the Maldives face inundation from rising sea levels. Writers who are crossing cultural boundaries and portraying cultures that are profoundly unfamiliar must learn to become adept at being fully present in these other cultures. My novel, Daughter of Bad Times, arose out of the complexities I faced when writing about sea-level rise and the population displacement that can follow. In order to minimise the risk of epistemic violence, I drew on the work of Kelly Oliver and Marcia Langton and their notion of bearing witness to construct an intellectual model to guide the task of writing across cultural boundaries in the Anthropocene era. Witnessing means listening, acknowledging, and responding to others in a way that is fully present and engaged. This model suggests a way forward for writers eager to engage with other cultures through climate fiction.