Разматрање одлика немачке (пост)климатске фикције на примеру романа Мале Романа Ерлиха и Прокси Аики Мире
An examination of the Characteristics of German (Post-) Climate Fiction: Malé by Roman Ehrlich and Proxy by Aiki Mira

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents an overview of the characteristics of German climate fiction within the theoretical and methodological framework of ecocriticism, defined as the study of the relationship between literature and the environment. The term climate [change] fiction (cli-fi) refers broadly to literature about climate change and its causes, short- and long-term effects, and the emotions it evokes in humans. Even though there are examples of fiction with ecological themes dating back to nineteenth-century German literature, climate fiction is a predominantly contemporary phenomenon (late twentieth and twenty-first century). Axel Goodbody, a scholar of German studies and ecocriticism, analyzes around thirty novels as German climate fiction, the first of which was published in 1993, whereas Ingo Cornils distinguishes the “highbrow” literature with climate themes and contemporary twenty-first-century popular climate change literature, which aims to either pessimistically warn of the consequences, optimistically offer utopian visions, or address the concerns of young adults. Post-climate fiction is a term that is not used in the academic discourse (yet), but has recently appeared in promotional texts. The goal of the paper is to present the existing theoretical foundations to Serbian-speaking academia, where climate fiction is a relatively new term, and to further contribute to the examination of the literary representations of the climate changes in German literature using the examples of the 2020 novel Malé by Roman Ehrlich and the 2024 novel Proxi by Aiki Mira. The novel Malé has already been interpreted through the lens of intercultural and postcolonial ecocriticism, as it is set in the capital of the Maldives, where tourism and life are impossible due to the ecological crisis. The analysis focuses on the interwoven motifs of waste and the degradation of the touristic paradise, the apocalyptic, subjective communication on climate change, and the absence of future/children and meaning on the island. The novel Proxi is an example of hopepunk, presenting an optimistic view of survival in a post-apocalyptic world. The analysis examines virtual reality as a means of reconfiguring the relationship to the environment, culminating in characters merging with landscapes, and the posthumanist elements of the novel, that is, postanthropocentrism and the fluid boundaries between humans, technology, and the environment, which is presented as polyreal, consisting of multiple realities interconnected in complex ways, which also applies to the ecological crisis as one dimension of the polycrisis. Finally, the paper concludes that both novels follow the existing conventions and that, even though Malé is rooted in the German literary tradition, mostly through references to German romanticism, the main focus is on the theme of climate change, which transcends cultural boundaries and is of planetary importance.

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