For a year and a half now, we’ve been hard at work on a project to explore the relationship between anarchism and fiction. Primarily, we’ve been doing this by interviewing anarchist fiction writers, such as Alan Moore, about the relationship. Anyhow, we’re incredibly pleased to announce that we will be working with AK Press, a collectively-run anarchist publisher, to bring out our exploration in book form.
We’re now at the point where we’re looking for help, for advice and suggestions. Specifically, we’re looking for:
-living anarchist fiction writers
-dead anarchist fiction writers
-other fiction writers of note, and their interactions with anarchism
-fiction that explores anarchist societies
-fiction that features sympathetic anarchist characters
-stories that fictionalize anarchist history
-fiction that slanders anarchists and/or anarchism
any tips or thoughts would be appreciated by email to strangers[a]riseup.net
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: Signs Of The Times
4 Responses to Anarchist Fiction Writers Project
i am really disappointed that you chose to go with ak press on this project. their quality is consistently low, both in binding and in editing, and their politics are depressing also. there are plenty of small anarchist presses that you could have worked with – eberhardt being one in your own area.
We’re actually pretty close friends with Eberhardt, and we have nothing but respect for them. We chose AK Press for a number of reasons, however, and stand behind that choice.
I eagerly await your interviews with Iain Banks, Ken Macleod (and Kim Stanley Robinson).
Ken keeps close tabs on the writing of Mutualist Anarchist theorists like Kevin Carson, and, hell, Banks keeps chugging out critically praised and widely selling novels rhapsodizing about the awesomeness of high-tech anarchist utopia.
…Of course they’re Brits, so…
The big (past) anarchist fiction writers for me are: Albert Camus (the founder of absurdism as a philosophy and as a form of theatre), Oscar Wilde and Leo Tolstoy.
It’s worth noting that each of these has written on Anarchism, and their work can be easily found at theanarchistlibrary.org and other places. Camus and Tolstoy actively supported the anarchist movement, Camu was a member of Friends Of Durruti and defended the anarchists in print, and Tolstoy’s writings influenced the creation of communes and co-operative farms such as the Life and Labor Commune in Russia and Gandhi’s Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg, South Africa.