{"id":497228,"date":"2026-06-13T04:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T04:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/497228\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T04:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T04:42:09","slug":"irish-anthropocene-literature-climate-change-sovereignty-meditation-on-words-and-nature-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/497228\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Anthropocene – Literature, Climate Change, Sovereignty: Meditation on words and nature \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish Anthropocene: Literature, Climate Change, Sovereignty Syracuse University Press <\/p>\n

Author: Malcolm Sen <\/p>\n

ISBN-13: 978-0815612070<\/p>\n

Publisher: 978-0815612070<\/p>\n

Guideline Price: \u00a366<\/p>\n

In his introduction to Irish Anthropocene, Malcolm Sen describes our present world as \u201cone in which we are never done talking about natural disasters but fail to acknowledge their anthropogenic origins: the sociopolitical and cultural realities actively constructed through histories of extraction and empire\u201d. <\/p>\n

But who are these we? Not the swelling numbers of citizens \u2013 of voters \u2013 who very readily make the connection between capitalist economic systems of extraction and consumption, and the ever-intensifying climate emergency. And certainly not the very many Irish writers who have engaged with passion and verve in matters of nature, environment and landscape in an age of climate breakdown<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This is, then, an oddly loose note in an otherwise taut and impressive study which offers illuminating and frequently poignant readings of writers including Eavan Boland<\/a>, Mike McCormack, Claire Kilroy, and Doireann N\u00ed Ghr\u00edofa. <\/p>\n

Sen\u2019s studies of the work of Moya Cannon, Sara Baume and Kevin Barry<\/a> are especially instructive and moving. In her novel A Line Made by Walking, Baume evokes the sensations of homelessness, exile and helpless despair that accompany our individual lives in a time of environmental emergency. As Baume\u2019s protagonist says: \u201cThe world is wrong. It took me twenty-five years to realise and I don\u2019t think I can bear it any more. The world is wrong and I am too small to fix it, too self-absorbed.” <\/p>\n

Sen reads this book against Barry\u2019s short story Fjord of Killary, which satirises a \u201cbusiness-as-usual\u201d mindset in the face of climate breakdown. The juxtaposition of these two texts is highly effective and exemplifies the wide environmental ground covered in contemporary Irish writing.<\/p>\n

Cannon\u2019s work, meanwhile, views nation and world both from the perspective of deep planetary time and from the edge \u2013 from shores, strands, estuaries, from the ocean \u2013 in a way, Sen suggests, that both disturbs established notions of home and national sovereignty, and connects Irish and global issues of flood and climate-enforced migration. \u201cSome echo under the stones seduces our feet,\u201d writes Cannon, \u201cleads them down again by the grey, agitated sea.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sen himself responds to these images of edgelands, asking the reader to reimagine the notion of sovereignty as being \u201cfrom above, and beneath, and just beyond what we understand the territory of national states to be\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish Anthropocene: Literature, Climate Change, Sovereignty Syracuse University Press Author: Malcolm Sen ISBN-13: 978-0815612070 Publisher: 978-0815612070 Guideline Price:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6489,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-497228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-book-reviews","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}