Between the Anthropocene and Afrofuturism

The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler, and A Heaven Between Worlds, by Sandra Menezes

Abstract

Contemporary literature has been reinventing itself through writers who propose new perspectives on the problems that surround us, new ways of visualizing tomorrow, which can present the impacts of our actions as a society or of reconstructing and rethinking reality in that we live. These transformations that take place in the literary sphere permeate sociological, philosophical, historical and, why not, ecological areas, demonstrating direct contact between fiction and the spaces that surround us, an entanglement that opens new discussions, new themes, and new literary analyses. Bearing this in mind, this article aims to create a dialogue between Afrofuturism and the Anthropocene, applying these two discussions in contemporary literature to analyze literary works: The Parable of the Sower (2018), by the North American writer Octavia Butler, dystopia written in 1993 that addresses the end of North American society in the years 2024 to 2027; and A sky between worlds (2021), by Brazilian writer Sandra Menezes, a utopia that narrates the return of the central character to an Earth that is being rebuilt after human degradation. Considering that both writers work with Afrofuturist literature, that is, they are black writers thinking through science fiction new ideas for the future, this article intertwines black literature with the Anthropocene. The two narratives will be crossed by this theoretical dialogue, to revisit and rethink Afrofuturist literature also as a literature that dialogues with the deconstruction and reconstruction of the world. To do so, I start from a confluence between Afrofuturist theorists, such as Mark Dery (1994), Samuel Delany (1984) and Lisa Yaszek (2012), as well as Malcom Ferdinand (2022), to think about Afrofuturist literature based on the book An Ecology decolonial.