Speaker
Description
"Eco is booming, even on the bookshelf", stated the Frankfurter Rundschau in 2008, reviewing Dirk C. Fleck's then-newly published eco-thriller Das Tahiti Projekt. Nowadays, ecological themes play an even greater role, primarily expressed in art through the fundamental conflict of economy vs. ecology.
Although the literary genre has existed since the 1980s, the Hamburg-based journalist Dirk C. Fleck, who has also worked as a freelance writer since 1995, is considered the initiator of the German eco-crime novel with his 1992 work, Palmers Krieg. Das Tahiti Projekt – both an independent story and the first part of the "Maeva Trilogy" – is staged as a "captivating thriller" (Hamburger Abendblatt). It dramatizes the multiple murders of people and the environment ("ecocide," D. C. Fleck), thereby expanding the generic possibilities of crime literature. It is also "an extremely realistic, intelligent, and brilliantly written futuristic novel" (J. Ziegler, former UN Human Rights Commissioner), set in the year 2022, depicting an ecological utopia, and for which Dirk C. Fleck was awarded the German Science Fiction Prize for the second time in 2009.
Furthermore, this novel is more than "a book of hope" (J. Ziegler), as it is the fictional realization of the non-fiction book Equilibrismus by V. Freystedt and E. Bihl (2005), which advocates for a real, alternative world order where humanity and nature live in harmony. Finally, Das Tahiti Projekt is also more than a mere novel because it was written with the intention of familiarizing as many people as possible with the goals and reform proposals of the Equilibrismus e.V. association, founded in 1998 and still active. A documentary film about the book, the blog for Dirk C. Fleck's novel, the association's websites, and the commitment of the author and activists ‘for a world in balance’ demonstrate how short the step from eco-thriller to "Practical World Fiction" (Deeplookers Blog) can be.
| Keywords | Dirk C. Fleck, The Tahiti Project, ecothriller, science fiction, engagement |
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| elena.giovannini@uniupo.it |