Sudeep Sen Anthropocene: Climate Change, Contagion, Consolation

Poetry, creative non-fiction and photographs weave feelings and ideas of isolation with larger global issues, politics, wars, and their consequent geopolitical/geological catastrophes.ANTHROPOCENE: Climate Change, Contagion, Consolation is a literary and artistic response to the most urgent issues that face humanity now — climate change and the pandemic. It tackles the complexities head-on with honesty and sensitivity, without any compromise. Simultaneously engaging multiple genres — creative non-fiction, essay, prose, poetry and photography — the book interrogates our lives against the backdrop of a dangerously fraught and ever-changing landscape, on the emotional, physical, micro and macro levels.Amid all the negative noise in the world, Anthropocene is a quiet artistic offering — a testament to our fervent times where the ever-increasing ravages of climate change scar humanity, where Fascist politics overrides the silence of introspection, where the cleaving schism between the rich and poor becomes ever-widening, where racism peaks at an all time high, where toxicity among people proliferates, and fake news abounds.Ultimately, Anthropocene is a plea for positivity and prayer — it urges us to slow down, to introspect, to consume less. It is time once again to learn how to love selflessly and embrace “Hope, heed, heal — our song, in present tense.”“It all started with a news clip I stumbled upon almost 15 years ago, where the President of the Pacific island of Kiribati expressed his concern about his people becoming 'climate refugees', due to rising sea levels.Since then, it has been a gradual evolution of ideas and the recent pandemic accelerated my literary and artistic response to the climate conflicts.I see Anthropocene as part of a larger sociocultural force, of which the pandemic is one of many crises.However, the book is not a doomed vision of the post- human world but a plea for slowing down, positivity, and an urge to embrace 'hope, heed, heal – our song, in present tense'."