Amazonian Sci-Fi in the Age of Environmental Emergency

"It's one thing to discuss the Amazon in Egypt. It's another thing to discuss the Amazon in Berlin. [...] Not now. Let's discuss the importance of the Amazon in the Amazon itself," said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a 2023 interview in reference to the confirmation of the city of Belém as the official venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2025. Since the 1970s the region has made international headlines as South American nations implemented developmentalist policies to boost their economy to the detriment of the environment. In this sense, scientific and journalistic discourse has been instrumental to the defense of the region in the political arena, both nationally and internationally. But could other types of discourse contribute to a more robust fight for the environment in times of climate emergency? For instance, could art help us imagine a more ecologically conscious world? What are the limits of science, journalism and realism in feeding our imagination?

A possible point of entry is the rapidly growing field of science fiction in Latin America.  According to recent scholarship, only in the twenty-first century has the genre finally received more widespread acceptance in academic and popular circles. For most of the region's literary history, science fiction was regarded as a foreign genre, associated with countries like France, England, the United States and the Soviet Union. Yet recent work by scholars from across the Americas and Europe have shown that the region's engagement with the genre dates back to its origins in the nineteenth century. Let us then turn to four contemporary Latin American novels where representations of the Amazon and its peoples play a central role in the narrative: Sacrilegio (2009), by Simón Jánicas, A morte e o meteoro (2019), by Joca Reiners Terron, Guerra por el agua (2020), by Marino Cedillo, and La mirada de las plantas (2022), by Edmundo Paz Soldán.

The first thing one might notice about these texts is the underlying, and unsurprising, awareness that the Amazon is a region of transnational interest. In every single one of these stories the repercussions of what happens in the region has a significant impact beyond its natural and political borders. This idea is especially present in Sacrilegio. In this novel by Colombian author Simón Jánicas, the fictional Iseieke people, at the turn of the twenty-first century, after avoiding contact with the Western world for millennia, flood mainstream media across the globe to spread their message of cross-cultural solidarity. Their plan involves the recruitment of important figures from all over the world who can tip the scales in their favor against the minority elite who control global capital. 

In Guerra por el agua, Ecuadorian writer Marino Cedillo brings a world war to the region in the twenty-fourth century, when the rest of the world, plagued by severe droughts and political strife, covets the Amazon's abundant reserves of fresh water. The intrepid president of the Latin American United Nations faces the imposing Colin Cristobo, leader of the Old World, who plans to seize control of a monumental dam in the Ecuadorian Amazon. These novels stage not only the environmental but also the political disputes that the region evokes and emphasize the importance of transnational cooperation in safeguarding the ecosystem and the peoples who inhabit it. 

                A second thread that connects all stories is the important role that indigenous epistemologies play in these narratives. Still in Sacrilegio, the Iseieke wait for the most appropriate moment in human history to spread their message of cultural relativism, that is, the idea that all gods and all truths across history are but one way of interpreting reality. And that very fact has the power to unite all peoples of the world, as opposed to the absolutism and the supposed universality of Western values. According to the mysterious lovecraftian narrator of the novel, the turn of the twenty-first century is a tipping point for humanity, a point where most nations are finally ready to embrace the multiplicity of views that can finally bring peace to the human race, and the Iseieke are the main representatives of this ideology.

                In A morte e o meteoro, by Brazilian author Joca Reiners Terron, indigenous knowledge provides insight into our catastrophic times. The fictitious Kaajapukugi people face extinction as there are only fifty male members left alive and, since the Amazon forest no longer exists in this near future, they move to Oaxaca, Mexico. The Mexican protagonist is the government employee in charge of the transfer, and as he encounters the Kaajapukugi he learns about their cyclical understanding of time, the cyclical nature of catastrophe and prosperity. The end of times will still come, but how the characters experience it takes on a new meaning.

                Finally, it is also worth mentioning that contemporary science fiction perpetuates a trend at the very core of the genre, that is, the dialogue with the sciences of the time. In La mirada de las plantas, by Bolivian writer Edmundo Paz Soldán, indigenous medicine and ritual meet virtual reality technology and even psychotherapy. In a laboratory at the border of Bolivia and Brazil, a psychiatrist witnesses firsthand the cooptation of the health benefits of an ayahuasca-like drug by the tech industry in the name of wellness. In this lab, volunteers ingest the drug and special equipment harvests their hallucinations, which are then turned into a virtual reality experience, supposedly to treat patients with mental health issues. What seems like a beneficial use of technology, however, hides an exploitation that mirrors those of previous centuries in the Amazon.

But contemporary science fiction does not borrow only from what we today call STEM. In A morte e o meteoro, anthropology is the science that structures the narrative as its protagonist tries to make sense of the group of people whom he welcomes to Mexican territory. The novel invents its own mythology and cosmogony as the unnamed Mexican protagonist goes over the research conducted by his Brazilian counterpart. The text is very much aware of the ethical issues at stake as it later turns out that the Brazilian anthropologist himself directly contributed to the extinction of the group. In all four novels, there is an acute sense that the empirical drive of Western science must be kept in check by the possibilities of other epistemologies that are not entirely based on rationalist principles.

One may argue that artistic discourse is less cogent than that of scientists and journalists, who are much more concerned with facts and objectivity. Yet, the insistence of the arts in provoking, reinventing and most importantly speculating does have the power to reshape our collective imagination. Let us hope that by bringing political actors closer to the Amazon next year we will be able to include more voices in the conversation toward climate justice. 

Eduardo Leão has a degree in Portuguese from the Universidade do Estado do Amazonas, Brazil, and a Ph.D. in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Studies from the University of Chicago, USA, where he currently holds the position of Assistant Instructional Professor in Spanish. His interests include Latin American contemporary literature, science fiction and Amazonian studies.