Are chickens going extinct? What is it like to be a white gorilla in Barcelona’s zoo? How threatening can be an ant? And how endangered are humans, in the industrial and capitalist biosphere? Italo Calvino’s Animals: Anthropocene Stories by Serenella Iovino (Cambridge UP) explores Anthropocene animals through the visionary eyes of a classic modern author. In Calvino’s stories, ants, cats, chickens, rabbits, gorillas, and other critters emerge as complex subjects and inhabitants of a world under siege. Beside them, another figure appears in the mirror: that of an anthropos without a capital A, epitome of subaltern humans with their challenges and inequalities, a companion species on the difficult path of co-evolution.
Free access available until 10 September https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/italo-calvinos-animals/D91847A037CCA41D1627A1A8BE7BEDF4?fbclid=IwAR2bbnDS9kpm3VGczTE_ZFxCNRNNnpQq6PBGCtbvV1uAQpqYjHLAZ4ECFKY#element
