Dystopian Fiction East and West

In "Dystopian Fiction East and West: Universe of Terror and Trial" Erika Gottlieb offers an original and comprehensive exploration of dystopian fiction. She discusses Western classics such as Huxley's "Brave New World", Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four", Bradbury's "Farenheit 451", Vonnegut's "Player Piano", Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", and Zamiatin's "We", all fictions that project expanded versions of the flaws of current society onto a hypothetical monster state in the future.These fictions work as prophetic warnings against a nightmare world that could, but should not be allowed to, come about. Gottlieb juxtaposes the Western dystopian genre with Eastern and Central European versions, introducing a selection of works from Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. She demonstrates that authors who write about and under totalitarian dictatorship find the worst of all possible worlds not in a hypothetical future but in the historical reality of the writer's present or recent past. Against such a background the writer assumes the role of witness, protesting against a nightmare world that is but should not be.She introduces the works of Victor Serge, Vassily Grossmam, Alexander Zinoviev, Tibor Dery, Arthur Koestler, Vaclav Havel, and Istvan Klima, as well as a host of others, all well-known in their own countries, presenting them within a framework established through an original and comprehensive exploration of the patterns underlying the more familiar Western works of dystopian fiction.