What does it mean to cast the shadow of the present onto a future shore? It means starting from the hidden areas of the reality we live in, from the data we ignore, from the events we tend to minimize to try to imagine what tomorrow could be like. It means, therefore, to explore the folds of the present to outline a plausible, concrete future, not based on desires, dreams, or the denial of reality, but on critical analysis and realism. The Anglo-Saxons, who love synthesis (and for this reason often trivialize and struggle to deal with complexity), call this way of looking at what awaits us and describing it “speculative nonfiction”. Some speak of nonfiction fiction, but it is an expression that hides a prejudice given that in speculative nonfiction the aim is not to invent anything. Vice versa, one tries to start from real data. This is what eight Italian and international authors led by Fabio Deotto have done in the volume “Come ne usciremo” (Bompiani, 2025, pp. 160, also e-book) by telling how the world can change between today and 2040. The first choral work of speculative nonfiction created in Italy.
"How We'll Get Out of This" tries, in fact, to make tangible the enormous transformations we have been experiencing in recent years. The eight voices that contributed to composing the book together with Deotto - Vincenzo Latronico, Chigozie Obioma, Claudia Durastanti, Francesca Coin, Meehan Crist, Sergio del Molino, Omar El Akkad, Angela Saini - talk to us about the environment, global warming, rights, democracy, war. They put before our eyes without pretense the gloom of the period we are going through. They show us the drift by which we too often let ourselves be carried away almost careless of continuing to touch the edge of the abyss. Yes, of course, we are doing something to stop climate change, to reduce inequalities and to combat wars and violence. After all, we continue to repeat that we are still alive, that Planet Earth still "tolerates" us and supports us.
Reading the eight contributions in "How We'll Get Out of This" helps us understand that humanity is still in the midst of its life's journey and that it still risks finding itself in a dark forest, to quote, paraphrasing, Dante. Just because we manage to postpone catastrophes, it doesn't mean that they can't arrive , perhaps slowly, but inexorably.
In short, we are not safe and we will be even less safe if we ignore facts, data, figures, trends, all factors that indicate that the heat is increasing, inequalities exist and we are struggling to fight them, democracy holds, but with difficulty and wars are brushing us, but ever closer, from time to time. Will things be worse or better in 2040, in short? The answer lies in the choices we are about to make now. Difficult choices, perhaps, but ostriches that hide their heads in the sand do not escape the lion that wants to tear them to pieces.