The Cambridge Companion to Dystopian Literature

Addressing the full historical range of dystopian writing from the early nineteenth century to the present, this carefully curated collection of essays illuminates one of the most popular literary genres of the modern age, exploring rich and fraught themes from dictatorship and totalitarianism to environmental collapse and artificial intelligence.

Addressing the full historical range of dystopian writing from the early nineteenth century to the present, this carefully curated collection of essays explores the shaping influence of major authors like George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Margaret Atwood alongside a number of rich and important texts by lesser-known and twenty-first-century writers. Chapters explore key themes including dictatorship and totalitarianism, the fear of revolution, anxiety about environmental collapse, misogyny, artificial intelligence and robotics, and imperialism as portrayed in literary dystopias. Focused primarily on the Anglo-American tradition, this Companion also features extensive discussion of European trends in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as a full chapter on non-Western dystopian literature.