The essays collected in this book touch upon¿from a variety of perspectives¿the question of how the understanding of what is human has changed in the twenty-first century. The authors, exploring the intersection between postcolonial theory, posthumanism and environmental studies, provide a wider reflection concerned with the changing perception of the human in the contemporary world and examine its literary representations. The literary works selected for analysis include those of Margaret Atwood, J. M. Coetzee, Lisa Jarnot, Amitav Gosh, Alain Mabanckou, Barbara Kingsolver, Philip K. Dick and William Shakespeare.