The climate crisis is here, and as we grapple with what this means (and what to do about it), some writers offer warnings of what comes next in their fiction. This is Cli-Fi and it’s here to stay. Christine Lai’s Landscapes recalls the works of Rachel Cusk and Kazuo Ishiguro through a tale of art and survival in a world after ecological collapse. Andrew F. Sullivan’s The Marigold has been called “a gripping tour-de-force torn from tomorrow’s headlines” and looks at a near-future Toronto buffeted by unfettered development. Catherine Leroux imagines an alternate history, resulting in a world where children rule over their own kingdom in the trees, set in a strange, polluted, yet magical version of Detroit in The Future. Moderated by Claudia Casper.
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CLAUDIA CASPER is the author of four novels, including The Mercy Journals, winner of the 2017 Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction, and The Reconstruction, which is being adapted for film. She has taught writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and been a long-time mentor for Vancouver Manuscript Intensive.
CHRISTINE LAI grew up in Canada and lived in England for six years during graduate studies. She holds a PhD in English Literature from University College London. Landscapes was shortlisted for the inaugural Novel Prize, offered by New Directions Publishing, Fitzcarraldo Editions, and Giramondo Publishing. Christine currently lives in Vancouver.
CATHERINE LEROUX was born in 1979 in the Northern suburbs of Montreal. After holding various jobs she became a journalist and devoted herself to writing. Her first novel, Marche en forêt, was published in 2011 by Éditions Alto. The Party Wall, her English-language debut published with Biblioasis in 2016, was selected for Indies Introduce for Summer/Fall 2016, shortlisted for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the 2016 Governor General’s Award for Translation. The form-bending narrative Madame Victoria was published by Biblioasis in 2018.
ANDREW F. SULLIVAN is the author of novels The Marigold; The Handyman Method (co-written with Nick Cutter); Waste, a Globe and Mail Best Book; and the story collection All We Want Is Everything, a Globe and Mail Best Book and finalist for the Relit Award. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.
