John Thieme is currently Senior Fellow at the University of East Anglia, UK. He previously held Chairs at the University of Hull and London South Bank University and his previous books include Postcolonial Con-Texts: Writing Back to the Canon, Postcolonial Literary Geographies, Postcolonial Literary Geographies, and studies of Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul and R.K. Narayan.

• 1.Introduction2.‘Weather as Everything’: Social Realism in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior 3.Seeking ‘The Perfect Story’: Metajournalistic Realism in Helon Habila’s Oil on Water4.Apocalypse Now? Visceral Realism in Liz Jensen’s The Rapture5.Tracing Genealogies: Circumstantial Realism in Annie Proulx’s Barkskins6.‘Trees Are Social Creatures’: Animist Realism in Richard Powers’ The Overstory7.It’s Not Funny: Comic Realism in Ian McEwan’s Solar8.Beyond the Anthropocene: Testimonial Realism in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People9.Nordic Noir: Urban Realism in Antti Tuomainen’s The Healer10.‘Everything Change’: Speculative Realism in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy11.‘Outside the Range of the Probable’? Picaresque Realism in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island12.ConclusionBibliography

Thieme’s close readings are many, and all contribute a specific insight into the text examined. His reading makes us think about the stakes of Anthropocene realism. Consistently, he provides convincing evidence of a new generation of writers innovating the novel genre and expanding the scope of literary realism.