Fiction in the Age of Risk

<p>When Ulrich Beck theorised a ‘Risk Society’ (<i>Risikogesellschaft</i>) in 1986 the threat of global annihilation through nuclear war remained uppermost in the minds of his readership. Three decades on questions about whether the sensation of risk has mutated or evolved in the intervening period and whether fiction exhibits evidence of such a change remain just as urgent. While the immediate risk of the Cold War’s ‘mutually assured destruction’ through World War Three seems to have ebbed the paradox is that the social goal of safety and security seem to elude attainment. Global financial collapse Islamic terrorism human-authored climate change epidemic disease outbreaks refugee crises and the chronic erosion of the welfare state now preoccupy those in the developed world and provide the horizons for contemporary anxieties worldwide. </p><p></p><p>The contributions to this volume explore these themes locating their significance and representation in a diverse range of contemporary literature film and comics from China Australia South Africa United Kingdom Pakistan and the United States. This book was originally published as a special issue of <i>Textual Practice. </i></p>