10 Lesser-Known Anti-Totalitarian Novels |
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10 Lesser-Known Anti-Totalitarian Novels
While Orwell and Atwood have become the default lenses through which readers process political darkness, a rich parallel tradition of anti-totalitarian fiction has been making the same arguments in unexpected ways.
This spring, the president of the United States posted a picture depicting himself as Jesus Christ. That bizarre exercise in self-hagiography was only the latest in Trump's decade-long campaign of anti-democratic actions and statements, including but not limited to blatant efforts to use the government to silence press critics, efforts to prosecute those the president sees as personal enemies, armed masked agents of the state kidnapping people off the street, and, of course, an attempted coup.
In this environment, people have turned to a small collection of dystopian anti-totalitarian novels to try to understand our current circumstances. George Orwell's 1984, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Octavia Butler's Parable duology, Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series, Philip Roth's The Plot Against America and Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle offer insights into how liberty falls to tyranny, and how people resist, or (often, alas) don't.
I'd certainly recommend reading all of the texts above. They do, though, have some limitations. Most are written by white men, who are not generally the first people targeted by totalitarian regimes. And their canonical status and ubiquity can prevent readers from seeking out other, equally worthy, and sometimes maybe even more insightful texts. Below are 10 anti-totalitarian novels that are often passed over but shouldn't be.
Must-read anti-totalitarian fiction
James Hogg's 'Confessions of a Justified Sinner'
James Weldon Johnson's 'Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man'
John Christopher's 'The City of Gold and Lead'
Joanna Russ's 'We Who Are About To…'
Yoko Ogawa's 'The Memory Police'
Abdulrazak Gurnah's 'Paradise'
Jason Heroux's 'We Wish You a Happy Killday'
N.K. Jemisin's 'The Broken Earth' Trilogy
Safiya Sinclair's 'How to Say Babylon'
Tasha Suri's 'The Isle of the Silver Sea'
James Hogg's 'Confessions of a Justified Sinner'
Hogg's classic tale about a Christian corrupted by the devil isn't usually........