Political Fiction?
Asking for Recommendations
For people who read my previous post on the subject: while I love the samples I chose to read from (K.A. Porter, Nabokov, Russell Banks) they are not exactly contemporary. I am a little under-read when it comes to contemporary literature in general and while I have read some recent political novels and stories there are, I’m sure, a lot I am unaware of.
So I’m inviting you to write in the comments below some descriptions of contemporary novels on political subjects that you think are excellent. Write as long as you like!
And if you’re wondering about the picture? Just replace political bosses with boss writers and it works!
all the contemporary political novels i've read have scenes where the author attends a trump protest and gets mad or watches trump win on election night and gets sad lmao. talk about poverty of the imagination!
Maybe the opposite of contemporary, but I'd recommend three novels by Ishmael Reed from the 1960s-70s: The Free Lance Pallbearers, Mumbo Jumbo, and Yellowback Radio Brokedown. Each bores into an existing literary genre-- bildungsroman, detective noir, Western-- to explore themes of Black identity and power. The Freelance Pallbearers (1966) seems eerily relevant, with its TV pitchman president who governs and plunders from his toilet seat (he suffers from a "weird, ravaging intestinal illness") while presiding over the mss kidnapping of city children. Mumbo Jumbo introduces the essential vodoun concepts of petro and rada, which might be compared to black and white magic and which have to operate in concert to create a potent and enduring spell.