Awake in the Floating City | Susanna Kwan

 

Set in a future San Francisco, Kwan’s novel of a young woman choosing to stay in the flooded city is both a visceral manifestation of a fragile environmental reality, and an exploration of how the mind adjusts to impermanence. In Kwan’s vividly-drawn city, residents must constantly adapt, improvise, and negotiate with an environment that is both indifferent and overwhelming. Yet far from being a chronicle of decline, it is a quietly profound testament to endurance, and to the impulse to live fully, even when the ground beneath has disappeared.