Eco-Dystopian Fiction from Africa and Asia Confronts Environmental Crises

Environmental fiction from Africa and Asia is gaining prominence, with eco-dystopian novels addressing climate change and ecological degradation. Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, adapted by Netflix as The Three Body Problem with a second series due in late 2026, critiques Mao's environmental policies and pollution in China. Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide depicts a trash-covered island, reflecting China's waste issues. Taiwanese works like Chi Ta-wei's The Membranes and Wu Ming-yi's The Man with the Compound Eyes are part of a lively translation market. Nigerian author Suyi Davies Okungbowa's Lost Ark Dreaming features a flooded Lagos and social inequality in the Pinnacle high-rise, while Nnedi Okorafor's Noor and Tochi Onyebuchi's War Girls explore similar themes. Indian contributions include Lavanya Lakshminarayan's Analog/Virtual and Varun Thomas Mathew's The Black Dwarves of the Good Little Bay, set in a post-Mumbai 2041 with a Bombadrome refuge. These works use futuristic visions to comment on contemporary anxieties, with themes of injustice, colonial history, and technological mistrust. The genre highlights biodiversity loss and industrial debris, particularly in South Asian and African contexts. Cultural critics Yue Zhou and Xi Liu note the ecological turn in Chinese culture, and Cara Healy of Wabash College observes the shift from past to future critiques. Emad El-Din Aysha suggests dystopia is driven by real-life anxieties, not just a Western genre.