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Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World

Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World

by John Freeman

Penguin Books ·2021 ·290 pages
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About This Book

Building from his acclaimed anthology Tales of Two Americas, beloved writer and editor John Freeman draws together a group of our greatest writers from around the world to help us see how the environmental crisis is hitting some of the most vulnerable communities where they live. In the past five years, John Freeman, previously editor of Granta, has launched a celebrated international literary magazine, Freeman's, and compiled two acclaimed anthologies that deal with income inequality as it is experienced. In the course of this work, one major theme came up repeatedly: Climate change is making already dire inequalities much worse, devastating further the already devastated. But the problems of climate change are not restricted to those from the less developed world. Galvanized by his conversations with writers and activists around the world, Freeman engaged with some of today's most eloquent storytellers, many of whom hail from the places under the most acute stress--from the capital of Burundi to Bangkok, Thailand. The response has been extraordinary. Margaret Atwood conjures with a dystopian future in a remarkable poem. Lauren Groff whisks us to Florida; Edwidge Danticat to Haiti; Tahmima Anam to Bangladesh; Yasmine El Rashidi to Egypt, while Eka Kurniawan brings us to Indonesia, Chinelo Okparanta to Nigeria, and Anuradha Roy to the Himalayas in the wake of floods, dam building, and drought. This is a literary all-points bulletin of fiction, essays, poems, and reportage about the most important crisis of our times.


Reviews

"Yoked environmental and humanitarian crises in Egypt, Mexico, Hawaii, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and beyond are brought forward in masterful works elegiac, angry, and ironic in Freeman's clarion global chorus."

Donna Seaman· Booklist Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"But that eclecticism is also what prevents A Tale of Two Planets from sinking in the kind of ideological mud which bogs down [other books], and a reminder that excellent environmental writing can come from literally anywhere—not just the frozen tundras of macho adventure-stories."

Josephine Livingstone· The New Republic Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"You may struggle to make sense of the voices, to fit them into your own overarching narrative, and you will fail because there is no single narrative—these are tales, not a tale, and they force you to ask instead of answering, to continue asking, each tale an answer you've probably never heard."

Alan Levinovitz· Los Angeles Review of Books Read review ↗ Near the Top

"One day, it will become a matter of life and death for rich and poor alike ..."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"You must read them and encounter their voices yourself ..."

Wen Stephenson· The Nation Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"This anthology showcases personal responses to climate change through literature ...This work will suit readers curious about the long-standing and wide-ranging effects of climate change, as lived and experienced by writers around the world."

David R. Conn· Library Journal Read review ↗ Near the Top

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