Diane Cook wrote the dystopian novel The New Wilderness in 2020. It centers on a mother and daughter attempting to survive in one of the last remaining protected wilderness regions in a near-future planet devastated by climate change. The book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and is renowned for fusing harsh social and environmental criticism with futuristic survival fiction.

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Key facts

• Author: Diane Cook
• Publication year: 2020
• Genre: Dystopian / speculative / literary fiction
• Notable honor: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
• Primary setting: A vast “Wilderness State” outside a polluted City

The novel imagines a world where the sprawling City is dangerously polluted and overpopulated. A small experimental group of people are permitted to live as nomads in the Wilderness State under stringent guidelines, which include leaving no trace, continuing to move, and putting up with strict ranger supervision. The protagonists of the tale are Bea and her little daughter Agnes, who flee the city in the hopes that Agnes’s deteriorating health may be saved in the countryside.

The New Wilderness examines environmental degradation, the price of human growth, and the conflict between access and preservation. Additionally, it delves at parenting, sacrifice, and the manner in which cultures uphold order, particularly about women’s bodies and marginalised groups. The novel frequently raises questions about what it means to be “civilised” and what happens to people when institutions disappear, yet surveillance persists.

Cook’s writing blends harsh portrayals of suffering, disease, and brutality with poetic descriptions of landscapes. With occasional moments of awe at the nonhuman environment, the tone is frequently tense and unpleasant. The book may be regarded as both a survival story and a climate parable because it strikes a balance between large, allegorical concepts and personal family drama.

Although some critics pointed out the novel’s harshness and discomfort, most applauded its ambition, creativity, and vivid world-building. It became one of the most well-known recent works of climate and eco-dystopian literature when it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.