Dystopian books rose to the bestseller lists after the US elections

In the year Published in 1985 Margaret Atwoodin a novel The Handmaid‘s Tale (Fin. Your slave) has become one of the best-selling books in the United States since the presidential election in early November.

Last week, the dystopian work about a totalitarian society rose 400 places on Amazon’s list of best-selling books, US media reports. Also George Orwellin dystopiateos In 1984 has risen to the top of the sales charts.

This is a phenomenon that was repeated in 2017 as well Donald Trump’s after the first election victory, says the doctoral researcher in political science at the University of Turku Jaakko Dickman.

“Many people have figuratively had the rug pulled from under their feet. People are in an uncertain situation and fiction helps to understand society and chaotic situations,” says Dickman.

Dystopia is often imagined, the worst possible consequence of the things that are already present in today’s societies. Although the United States is not a dystopia, its society, according to many, has dystopian features, says Dickman.

“When reading these dystopian works, one can speculate where all this will lead.”

Reading a dystopian work can also be a cleansing experience. When the worst possible thing happens in the work, the perception of real life is perhaps brighter.

Atwood’s The Handmaid‘s Tale tells about women’s complete loss of their own bodily integrity and human rights. Children are no longer born, and women who are able to give birth are slaves to men and society.

The popularity of the work is presumably based on the issue of abortion in the United States and concern about a woman’s integrity to her own body, says Dickman. The Supreme Court overturned broad abortion rights in the United States in 2022. During the election, Trump has courted the Christian right on the issue of abortion.

The sale of dystopian works has probably also been boosted by the rumor circulating on Tiktok, according to which Trump is about to ban the dystopian works in question. The videos list a list of Trump’s “banned books” and the information is said to be based on the conservative think tank’s Project 2025 project.

Presenting the project in the document however, dystopian books are not mentioned.

Dickman’s according to the dystopian worldview extends beyond literature and elections. In the background, pandemics, the climate crisis and the weak economic situation also have an effect.

“In the era of uncertainty, people’s faith in the future has weakened,” says Dickman.

He uses Billboard’s chart of the most popular songs as an example.

“There you can find, for example, Lady Gagan and Bruno Mars Die with a smile and Billie Eilishin Birds of a feather. Both have a very strong atmosphere of the end times.”

The lyrics of the songs sing about how to love someone until death. Die with a smile – the song even refers to the end of the world:

If the world were to end, I’d want to be by your side. If the party were over and our time on earth was over, I’d like to hold you just for a moment and die smiling.

“Dystopian thinking is well embedded in our current culture,” states Dickman.