British Covid Fictions: Reading Pandemic Politics

Dix, Hywel

This is the first book-length study of Covid fictions in Britain. It argues that although it was common to see the Covid-19 pandemic as a state of exception, that is, as a unique emergency for which there was no precedent, it is misleading to treat the experience of the pandemic in Britain in isolation because the state’s political and rhetorical responses to it were less out of keeping with already existing social and political structures than might have been expected. This means that there was a strong continuity between the dominant political ideology before the outbreak of Coronavirus and that which pervaded it, an ideology that can best be described as neoliberal political and economic thought. Through its analysis of Covid fictions, the book explores ways in which writers used their work to critique the dominant ideology while also at times remaining entrapped within it precisely because it was the dominant ideology.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2025-10-16

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9783032026125

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-02613-2

Dimensions: 210cm x148cm

Pages: 198