Once Upon a Time in the Anthropocene: Myths, Legends, and Futurity in Turkish Climate Fiction

Abstract

Myths and legends in climate fiction are often studied with reference to fantasy and magical realism; yet the relationship between the two forms remains understudied. This article examines the use of both as they overlap in Turkish climate fiction to address the multiscalar complexities of climate change and to offer imaginaries of multispecies solidarity. Through close readings of Ayşegül Yalvaç’s Bir İstanbul Efsanesi (2022; An Istanbul Legend) and Oya Baydar’s Köpekli Çocuklar Gecesi (2019; Night of the Children-with-Dogs), I demonstrate how the texts adopt a feminist ethics of care to create speculative legends dramatizing cofutures in the making. I argue that the speculative legend serves three major functions, It challenges universalizing, apocalyptical, and anthropocentric Anthropocene discourses by depicting localized histories of collective action and multispecies solidarity. It ironizes the engendering of messianic figures. Lastly, the speculative legend reveals the possibilities of multispecies cosmopolitics while exposing the limits of utopian cosmopolitanisms.

Merve Tabur

Lecturer/Researcher

I am a scholar of comparative literature and environmental humanities, focusing on how environmental destruction is depicted in speculative fiction, film, and visual arts from the Middle East and its Anglophone diasporas.