“In the twenty-first century it became clear that the planet was incapable of sustaining everyone alive at Western levels, and at that point the richest pulled away into their fortress mansions and bolted their doors to wait it out until some poorly theorized better time… beyond that, après moi le déluge.”
Uniting science and politics, and giving voice to our most ardent hopes and our worst fears, American climate fiction pioneer Kim Stanley Robinson’s book The Ministry for the Future is a gripping portrayal of a world grappling with the devastating consequences of climate change and the urgent actions needed to forge a sustainable future. In a world that is rapidly warming and where the conversation has already moved from mitigation to adaptation, where climate protestors are treated as security threats and global corporations continue to pollute the planet, discourses on our common future tend toward the apocalyptic.
Under such circumstances, imagining the future is a daunting task. Yet The Ministry for the Future reaffirms Robinson’s unique ability to weave science and storytelling into a compelling imaginative tool, offering thought-provoking solutions that often get lost amidst the highly polarized debate about how to best tackle this life-threatening problem.
After his talk, we will be joined by prof. dr. Heleen de Coninck and philosopher and author Lisa Doeland, experts in the fields of literature, environmental studies and social activism. Join the conversation as we explore the novel’s ingenious narrative structure, intricate character development, and the fascinating ideas that challenge our perceptions of climate change, economics and humanity’s role in shaping the future.
Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of 22 novels of speculative and science fiction and recipient of numerous awards. The New Yorker has called him one of the greatest science fiction authors of our time, while the Atlantic praised Robinson’s work as “the gold standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing.” His works are known for sparking important conversations around environmental, social and economic justice. ‘The Ministry for the Future’ was on Barack Obama’s list of favorite books from 2020.
This event is sponsored by Aegon.
