Climate fiction in the Anthropocene: Liz Jensen's the Rapture

This study intends to draw attention to the field of ecocriticism, which examines the relationship between literature and the environment and emphasizes the importance of this field in contemporary literature. Ecocriticism seeks to transform literary studies by connecting literary criticism and philosophy to broader environmental concerns. Thus, it bridges the gap between literary criticism and environmental issues by concentrating on literary representations of the global ecological concerns, primarily climate change crisis in literary texts. As a critical stance, ecocriticism provides a fruitful framework for analyzing, critiquing, explaining, and reconceptualizing humankind's relationships to the environment. By bringing into the spotlight the ecocritical literary theory, this study explores British author Liz Jensen's The Rapture (2009), paying particular attention to the concepts of 'the Anthropocene,' and 'cli-fi'. Liz Jensen's sixth novel, The Rapture, set at a near-future moment, employs the techniques of the thriller cli-fi and reflects apocalyptic global climate change, addressing increasing temperatures, unpredictable weather patterns, frequent hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes in the Anthropocene. Therefore, this study indicates that The Rapture provides a lens for understanding environmental degradation as a consequence of the human conduct on ecology, highlighting the growing global importance of ecocritical readings and drawing attention to the need to develop ecocritical perspectives in literary texts.