In dystopian fiction, texts contain speculations of a nightmarish future, which can be uncovered through a close literary examination. Paolo Bacigalupi's timely dystopia The Water Knife offers insights into the environmental issues around water resourcing that currently shape the southwestern United States water crisis, imagining a future for that crisis in social upheaval, unending drought, the displacement of populations and bitter political-and para-military- contests over water. This project aims to conduct a reading of The Water Knife as a contemporary dystopia, and to contextualise that reading by use of the non-fiction texts about the Southwestern United States water crisis. In what ways does this text demonstrate the dystopian genre is rising to the challenge of environmental crisis?
Date of Award | 2019 |
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Original language | English |
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- Bacigalupi
- Paolo. The water knife
- dystopian fiction
- environmental degradation
- droughts
- water supply
- social change
- fiction
Decoding the dystopia of The water knife
Sheppard, T. (Author). 2019
Western Sydney University thesis: Master's thesis