Oil on Water

“Petrofiction” is a term coined in 1992 by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh to describe a genre of literature that considers the intersection of oil and contemporary societies. Ghosh particularly had in mind the works of Saudi Syrian writer Abdul Rahman Munif, whose Cities of Salt quintet (1984-1989) explores the effect that the discovery of oil reserves has on a Bedouin community. Munif’s novels consider both the neocolonial implications of Western oil companies extracting resources from less industrialized regions as well as the erosion of traditional Bedouin culture that results from the rapid urbanization associated with the oil boom.

Ghosh’s essay about the quintet argued that Munif’s work was unique in its attention to the cultural impact of oil and urged other writers and critics to explore this area of modern life. For Ghosh, the neglect of oil in American literature specifically speaks to anxieties surrounding America’s relationship to the rest of the world—e.g., the entanglement of the American economy with the economies of the countries from which it derives its petroleum (Ghosh, Amitav. “Petrofiction: The Oil Encounter and the Novel.” The New Republic, 2 March 1992). Other critics have since argued that the term “petrofiction” should be understood more broadly, as the world depicted in much 20th- and 21st-century literature implicitly hinges on the availability of petroleum, which serves not only as an energy source (particularly for cars and other means of transportation) but also as a component of plastics and other mass-produced goods. Petrofiction is also closely intertwined with “cli-fi” (i.e., climate fiction), as any work focusing on anthropogenic climate change assumes the oil industry’s environmental impact.

Regardless of the definition one uses, Oil on Water falls comfortably under the umbrella of petrofiction and features many hallmarks of the genre: not only an overt focus on the social, economic, and environmental consequences of oil production but also an exploration of oil extraction as a form of neocolonialism. Other works commonly described as petrofiction include American writer Upton Sinclair’s 1926-1927 novel Oil!, which centers on an oil tycoon and his family, and Nigerian American writer Chris Abani’s 2004 GraceLand, which heavily features the economic consequences of the Nigerian oil boom.