The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson – Matjaž Gruden, columnist and Director of Democratic Participation at the Council of Europe

The Ministry for the Future, a work of climate fiction, imagines a near future in which the world confronts the increasingly tangible consequences of climate change. At its centre stands an international organisation established to devise solutions for an increasingly desolate world. Robinson follows a range of characters, from officials to scientists, as they seek to reconcile political, economic and ethical interests. Rather than dwelling on catastrophe, he focuses on the practical mechanisms of change.

Matjaž Gruden, columnist and Director of Democratic Participation at the Council of Europe, seems almost like a character who could step directly into Robinson's novel. Together with the moderators, he will discuss how convincingly the book portrays these processes and to what extent its characters, conflicts and plot developments reflect real-world challenges.

Kim Stanley Robinson is an acclaimed US writer and multiple recipient of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy, which established his international reputation, as well as such acclaimed works as The Years of Rice and Salt (2002), Forty Signs of Rain (2004) and 2312 (2012).

Widely regarded as one of the leading science fiction writers of his generation, Robinson had an asteroid named after him in 2001. The Ministry for the Future, translated into Slovenian by Alenka Ropret, is the first of Robinson's novels to appear in Slovenian.