From war memory to planetary consciousness: ecological postmemory and reconstructive metamodernism in Richard Flanagan’s Question 7

Abstract

This article examines Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 (2023) as a transformative work of postmemorial literature that fuses personal, historical, and ecological trauma within a metamodern framework. Drawing on the theories of Marianne Hirsch, Martin Heidegger, and Charlene Spretnak, the analysis traces how the novel expands postmemory beyond familial inheritance to encompass planetary crisis and ecological interconnectedness. Through narrative fragmentation, ethical self-reflection, and a poetics of care, Flanagan’s text models a reconstructive metamodernism that resists nihilism and affirms the profound communion of all life. Ultimately, Question 7 offers an ethics of love and responsibility, inviting readers to dwell authentically and respond to contemporary crises with renewed relationality and hope.