Are there any books out there that fit this description? Usually dystopian novels take place during the dystopia. I don't often see books where there are characters living through a world that is going to become the dystopia. While I'm specifically asking for fiction, I wouldn't mind nonfiction/historical studies either.
I suppose Animal Farm could be an example. Appreciate your suggestions.
by bugwitch
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Parable of the Sower
I cannot think of a book that explicitly travels the descent into an Orwellian future. However, here are some thoughts and my arguments for them:
*The Handmaid’s Tale* – This novel is similar to 1984, but you get some more backstory as to how we got there. It’s not nearly as far in the future.
*Silo* and its sequel, *Dust*. This is a Sci Fi series where you start in the “Orwellian future” of sorts, and it slowly explains how it got there over the course of the two novels.
*Catch and Kill*: this is a nonfiction, investigative journalism story that helped break the Epstein story, and also exposed political information suppression. A good exploration of the way public access to information can be influenced.
*She Said*: Same story as Catch and Kill but from a different perspective.
memoir of a german is a nonfiction diary of a german watching germany descend into chaos leading up to ww2/hitler/the holocaust. the author leaves before things get totally crazy
the lathe of heaven is a novella about a dystopia/idk, just shitty future america, where things are changing. I think it generally fits this description
the southern reach trilogy by jeff vandermeer is kinda like this but not in a social dystopia way (or at least not so far as I can tell from only reading the first book)
1984 Julia by Sandra Newman
The Madaddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood starts before the dystopia in book 1 and goes deep in books 2 and 3. I love seeing how it unfolds, although given the state of the world right now, it’s scarily realistic in a lot of ways.
To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara
Read any books about Germany in the 1930’s, Russian/Soviet history, material on North Korea, anything about Mao, cultural revolution stuff in particular, Cambodia & the Khmer Rouge.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Dark Money by Jane Mayer. It is non-fiction, but will provide a very helpful explanation of how we got here. (Add a dash of Netflix documentary: Bad Faith and you will start to see how complicated getting out of this will be.)
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Very timely, centres around a fictional civil war that takes place in Ireland where the government turns on its people.