Petrofiction
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 fiction that focuses on the oil industry as a major element. countable, uncountable
"Further, for Middle Eastern petrofiction, such as Abdelraman Munif's novel Cities of Salt, the novel can seem an unfortunate appropriation of the Western form rather than an indigenous form."
- 2 Fiction that deals with modern culture's dependency on petrochemicals. broadly, countable, uncountable
"This neglect of water exists in spite of a growing trend towards reading literature for its representations of resources, most prominently in the subject of 'petrofiction'."
Example
More examples"Further, for Middle Eastern petrofiction, such as Abdelraman Munif's novel Cities of Salt, the novel can seem an unfortunate appropriation of the Western form rather than an indigenous form."
Etymology
Originally coined as petro- + fiction by Amitav Ghosh in his review of Abdel Rahman Munif's quintet of novels Cities of Salt (published by New Republic in March 1992). The term was subsequently broadened by Imre Szeman in a 2012 article in American Book Review.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.