Paper Title: BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF INDIGENOUS RESILIENCE, APOCALYPTIC NARRATIVES, AND DECOLONIAL TIME IN ALEXIS WRIGHT’S THE SWAN BOOK

Author:

Preeti Singh¹
Guide By Dr. Bhawna Singh²
1. Research Scholar, Chaudhary Charan Singh University,Meerut, U.P.
2. Assistant Professor, Department of English, Chaudhary Charan Singh University,Meerut, U.P.
DOI Link (Crossref) Prefix: https://doi.org/10.63431/AIJITR/3.III.2026.47-51
AIJITR, Volume 3, Issue –III, May - June, 2026, PP.47-51
Received on 11th May, 2026 & Accepted on 21st May, 2026,
Published: 17th June, 2026

Abstract:

In this paper, we explain how Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book rethinks the apocalyptic narrative through Indigenous resilience and belonging. Set in a future marked by climate catastrophe and colonial violence, the novel entwines ecological collapse with cultural loss to reflect ongoing Indigenous struggles. Wright disrupts linear notions of apocalypse, offering a cyclical vision of time rooted in land, kinship, and renewal. We draw on postcolonial ecocriticism and Indigenous epistemologies to explore how the swan symbolizes both despair and hope, challenging Western binaries and expressing the poetics of survival. We frame this vision through decolonial time - a temporality that resists Western progress narratives and centers Indigenous understandings of time as relational and ancestral. The Swan Book does more than imagine the end of the world; it insists on the presence and futurity of Indigenous life. Consequently, it reshapes how we read apocalypse, survival, and the possibilities of belonging.

Keywords:Decolonial time, Indigenous resilience, Belonging, Cyclical temporality

DOI Link – https://doi.org/10.63431/AIJITR/3.III.2026.47-51

Review By – Dr. Amit Adhikari and Rana Gharai