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'A provocative, urgent novel about time, family and how a changing planet might change our lives, from James Bradley, acclaimed author of The Resurrectionist and editor of The Penguin Book of the Ocean.
'Compelling, challenging and resilient, over ten beautifully contained chapters, Clade canvasses three generations from the very near future to late this century. Central to the novel is the family of Adam, a scientist, and his wife Ellie, an artist. Clade opens with them wanting a child and Adam in a quandary about the wisdom of this. Their daughter proves to be an elusive little girl and then a troubled teenager, and by now cracks have appeared in her parents' marriage. Their grandson is in turn a troubled boy, but when his character reappears as an adult he's an astronomer, one set to discover something astounding in the universe. With great skill James Bradley shifts us subtly forward through the decades, through disasters and plagues, miraculous small moments and acts of great courage. Elegant, evocative, understated and thought-provoking, it is the work of a writer in command of the major themes of our time.' (Publication summary)
Affiliation Notes
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This work is affiliated with the AustLit subset "CliFi" because it contains representations of Anthropogenic climate change.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Australian Writers Have Been Envisioning AI for a Century. Here Are 5 Stories to Read as We Grapple with Rapid Change
2024
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 4 April 2024;'Australians are nervous about AI. Efforts are underway to put their minds at ease: advisory committees, consultations and regulations. But these actions have tended to be reactive instead of proactive. We need to imagine potential scenarios before they happen.' (Introduction)
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Settler Belonging in Crisis : Non-Indigenous Australian Literary Climate Fiction and the Challenge of “The New”
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: ISLE : Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment , Winter vol. 30 no. 4 2023; (p. 952–971) -
Climate Fiction and Disability : Enabled Futures in James Bradley's Clade
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 36 no. 1 2023; (p. 94-106)'James Bradley's futuristic novel Clade (2015) is not chiefly a story about human disability. It is a novel about climate crisis set across the course of the twenty-first century. But midway through the novel, we are introduced to a seven-year-old boy, Noah, who becomes a key character in the second half of the narrative. Noah is on the spectrum. Autistics decry their portrayal in fiction as aliens, as outsiders, as harbingers of disease and disorder, as beings without agency. As we get to know Noah as a boy, through his teenage years, and later on as an astronomer, his autism is neither denied nor made the defining characteristic of his personhood. Noah is given voice, perspective, and centrality as a rounded character, emerging as someone well suited to a future world reshaped by environmental crises and new social relations. He is not pathologized but socialized across the course of the novel into a world of family, friends, and work. Like his biblical namesake, Noah becomes a survivor in the new environmental and social spaces of the latter part of the twenty-first century.' (Publication abstract)
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Weathering, Tethering, Transforming : The Overstory and Writing the Future
2022
single work
essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , June vol. 81 no. 2 2022; (p. 86-90) Meanjin Online 2022; -
Creating New Climate Stories : Posthuman Collaborative Hope and Optimism
2022
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Text : Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , vol. 26 no. 1 2022; 'This paper considers an evolving project about climate change that will explore
using collaborative creative writing strategies to emotionally support and engage
writers, primarily focusing on how narratives of hope and optimism might counter
affective responses of anxiety, and the resultant solipsistic inertia or surrender. We
ask: what role could collaborative fiction play in helping to create positive futures
that emotionally strengthen us to manage what may come and what already is? We
outline the inspiration and background to our project and begin to theorise
justification for applying posthuman approaches to the question of reimagining
climate fiction. We review a number of collaborative climate change projects
located outside of traditional writing but still drawing on narrative storytelling, and
consider how our project – which focuses on genre fictions – might add to the
horizon point; one that is not delusional, but also does not lead to dystopian despair.'(Publication abstract)
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Apocalypse with a Human Touch
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 31 January 2015; (p. 19)
— Review of Clade 2015 single work novel -
With Adam and Noah to the End of Time
Branching into Future Shock
2015
single work
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 14-15 February 2015; (p. 30-31) The Canberra Times , 14 February 2015; (p. 25) The Age , 14 February 2015; (p. 24)
— Review of Clade 2015 single work novel -
Well Read
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 7 February 2015; (p. 27)
— Review of Clade 2015 single work novel -
James Bradley : Clade
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , March 2015;
— Review of Clade 2015 single work novel -
Review : Clade
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: The Adelaide Review , March no. 421 2015; (p. 22)
— Review of Clade 2015 single work novel -
James Bradley
2015
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 31 January 2015; (p. 30-31) The Canberra Times , 31 January 2015; (p. 19) The Age , 31 January 2015; (p. 24) -
Looking Back, Looking Forward
2015
single work
column
— Appears in: Aurora Australis , February 2015; -
Philosophy behind Future Shock
2015
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 21 February 2015; (p. 22) -
It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Don't Feel so Fine )
2015
single work
column
— Appears in: Australian Author , June vol. 47 no. 1 2015; (p. 10-13) 'The genre of cli-fi, whether you believe in it or not, is about more than natural disasters and a sense of impending doom.' -
Best Reads – End of Story
2015
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sunday Mail , 20 December 2015; (p. 24)
Awards
- 2017 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2016 shortlisted Western Australian Premier's Book Awards — Fiction
- 2016 shortlisted ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
- 2016 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
- 2016 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Prize for Fiction