Storying the Bleakness of the Anthropocene: Speculative Futures, Climate (In)justice, and Postcoloniality in Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s Analog/Virtual (2020)

The paper reads Lavanya Lakshminarayan's Analog/Virtual (2020), a climate dystopia from India, using Janet Fiskio's lifeboat/collective framework. Fiskio distinguishes between lifeboat narratives, focused on self-preservation, and collective narratives, advocating collective action and social justice. This study investigates the narrative tension between the 'lifeboat' and the 'collective' to understand how the novel contextualises the two in the Indian scenario. It critically evaluates the parameters that define the boundaries of the lifeboat and how the existing inequalities are reflected in its organisation. Likewise, the analysis examines the collective formed to identify the social quarters from which hope and resilience emerge in the novel. We contend that the novel uses its lifeboat (Analog)/collective (Virtual) dichotomy to call out climate injustice, thereby enjoining a just and inclusive future.