In the tradition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, writers use political fables to question power, dominant ideologies, and inequities. By twisting reality into fable, novelists hold up an all-too-accurate mirror to our world.
Set in an unnamed country, George Packer’s The Emergency imagines the aftermath of an empire’s collapse as society breaks down across class and generational divides. Hungarian novelist Krisztina Tóth’s dystopian Eye of the Monkey (tr. by Ottilie Mulzet) begins in the wake of a devastating civil war where citizens are under constant surveillance. In Dealing with the Dead (tr. by Helen Stevenson), Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou uses the form of a ghost story to deliver a biting satire of corruption and political violence.
In a conversation with Atlantic staff writer Gal Beckerman (How to Be a Dissident), these authors will discuss their new novels and what they reveal about political realities across the globe.
