Writing at the crossroads
of ecology, imagination, and activism
French writer, essayist, and eco-socialist activist Corinne Morel Darleux has built a body of work that blends politics, poetry, and environmental consciousness with remarkable grace. Before venturing into fiction-writing, she has published several essays received with great critical acclaim. Her second adult novel, Chimères tropicales, just got published by Dalva. It was partly written during the Vagamon Writers Residency.
Journey as a writer
My first book was published in 2019. Rather sink with elegance than float without grace was an essay about social and environmental issues. It was written as an attempt to bring together radicality and amenity, politics and poetry, as well as ethics in a collapsing world. It happened to be an unexpected and long-lasting success (60,000 copies), and this really gave me an astonishing impetus as a writer.
Residency with Villa Swagatam
This residency with Villa Swagatam was an incredible opportunity. I feel truly grateful that my book could raise in the incredible nature setting that is Kerala. Before applying to this residency, I already knew that my next novel was to take place in a tropical forest, and I had millions of notes and ideas, but no narrative structure, no story. I desperately needed to bring order to the chaos of ideas that animated me. To find myself immersed alone in a completely unfamiliar environment for three months was not always comfortable, but it was exactly what I needed to start this novel. Because beyond the characters and their story, deep inside, Chimères tropicales is all about creating and living in one’s own world, stepping out of what is usually referred to as “normality”, and in fine questioning the very notion of reality – somehow what I experienced during my unordinary stay in Kerala!
Climate fiction and the need for new narratives
Prominent authors such as Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula K Le Guin or Amitav Ghosh have paved the way for climate fiction. In my readings, I observe that when climate issues are addressed in a novel, they are less and less artificially inserted into the narrative. There is also a growing willingness to offer alternative futures – and not only horrific dystopias. But beyond the narrative, I believe we need to experiment with the strangeness, the unknown, even the disorder in literature; we need to invent new narrative formats, because we live in an era marked by uncertainty. Literature could echo that and help us face it.
Corinne Morel Darleux is a columnist, essayist and novelist. Engaged in many environmental, libertarian and peasant networks, she is dedicated to activism and writing that questions our relationship to the world. She is the author of several essays and children’s books. La Sauvagière, her first adult novel, was published in 2022 by Dalva.
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