This week, I’m posting a podcast on literary dystopias (from the Guardian Books series), with Canadian author Emily St John Mandel and Clemens J Setz.
I’ve always loved novels that look to the future, reconfiguring how society is organised and how technology impacts on daily life. For that reason, I count Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Jane Rogers’ The Testament of Jessie Lamb and Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army as some of my favourite books. And I’m already looking forward immensely to Antonia Honeywell’s The Ship, which is due out in February next year from Weidenfeld and Nicolson, which gives us ‘a luxury voyage into the future’ (Maggie Gee). One to look out for.
So here’s a juicy discussion with some new writers you may never have heard of, and which raises some interesting questions about the literary novel and plot and the place of dystopia within the category of literary fiction. Enjoy!
