“What a Splendid World We Ruined”: the Precarious Presents and Posthuman Futures of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and Dmitry Glukhovsky’s Metro 2033

Abstract

Speculative fiction is a particularly relevant genre at the moment when, apart from the troubling global impact of late-modern phenomena, the ongoing pandemic and the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War have raised universal concern. This paper conducts a comparative analysis of two novels which describe a postapocalyptic world after a deadly plague and a nuclear conflict, respectively: Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2004 [2003]) and Dmitry Glukhovsky’s Metro 2033 (2010 [2005]). It approaches the texts as critiques of late-modern neoliberal capitalism, employing the theory by Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck and Mark Fisher. Additionally, it scrutinises the representation of the neoliberal subject in Atwood’s book and utilises Svetlana Boym’s reflection on nostalgia in post-Soviet Russia to comment on Glukhovsky’s work. Lastly, it examines the posthuman alternative the two authors present for the deeply flawed human social orders.