Reading the mood of the times: Dystopian feel

Ever the contrarian, Oscar Wilde upended the Aristotelian mimesis by declaring that “life imitates art”.

Yet, if the longlist of novels for the 2018 Booker Prize is anything to go by, Aristotle got it right and art imitates life or, at least, reflects it.

According to philosopher and novelist Kwame Anthony Appiah, the chair of this year’s judges, “perhaps unsurprisingly, given the times, there were many dystopian fictions on our bookshelf”.

Among the most famous dystopian novels written in times of change and turmoil are Animal Farm by George Orwell in 1945 and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess in 1962.

None of the two Irish and one Northern Irish entries on the longlist are dystopian novels, but each reflects the times we live in.

Congratulations to Donal Ryan, Sally Rooney, and Anna Burns. Ryan is longlisted for the second time.

Congratulations also to Doubleday Ireland, for becoming the first Irish publisher to make the list, following an entry criteria change earlier this year. Entries had been confined to UK publishers, but that has now been extended to Ireland.