From nuclear war to climate change, the hands of the doomsday clock appear to be ticking inevitably closer to catastrophe. Diletta De Cristofaro (Harlaxton) surveys how modern writers have responded to the threat of a global apocalypse. She wonders why so few recent novels imagine optimistic scenarios in which global annihilation provides the chance for humankind to rebuild a more utopian civilisation on the other side.

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