The primary purposes of this essay are: 1. To show that Mia Couto’s fictional and non-fictional works present the writer’s view of nature on the African continent; 2 To prove that Couto’s humor discloses an ecocritical commitment and a deep concern about the current climate crisis.

The aim of the article is to analyse Michel Bernanos’ fantastic series The Other Side of the Mountain from an ecocritical perspective (among others, the literary text as L. Buell’s “green script”). The series first published in the sixties, constitutes an integral part of the well-known Angoisse collection edited by the publishing house Fleuve Noir, and its author is one of the most prominent figures of the "Fleuve Noir school of the fantastic". The innovative character of The Other Side of the Mountain consists of merging emblematic fantastic elements with protoecological ideas, which were, however, popularised by deep ecology only in the nineties.

This article analyzes the subconscious fears and anxieties connected with loneliness, low self-esteem, all kinds of frustrations, a sense of being trapped in a bizarre reality or being pushed to transgress (i.e. to cross the border between life and death, between the human and the animal, or getting exposed to new technologies or forms of religion) in Olga Tokarczuk's Opowiadania bizarne [ Bizarre Stories]. The resulting emotional volatility gives rise to questions about one own's identity and one's place in a world beyond control. At the same time the manifold fears and anxieties impose on one a Manichean, dualistic perception of an incurably weird (bizarre) reality. So in Opowiadania bizarne we are constantly reminded of man's arrogance in his relations with the earth's ecosystem, the destructive nature of his subconscious mind, the dangers of new technologies and the corrosive effects of postsecularism.