Confronting the Anthropocene with an Artificial Friend: The Pedagogical Affordances of Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Klara and the Sun’

Abstract

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021) is a useful pedagogical resource in the study of Anthropocene fiction. Its clear, engaging prose can suit the needs of university modules in contemporary anglophone literature, particularly those aimed at enhancing readers’ critical literacy. This article proposes a reading model of Ishiguro’s novel which seeks to perform a triple task: 1) to raise discourse awareness about artificiality as a symptom of the Anthropocene; 2) to stimulate a critical response to progress-oriented anthropogenesis; and 3) to encourage a rethinking of the crisis of the Anthropocene in terms of the novel’s narrative.