Time for another instalment of It’s Lit. This month it’s time to look at zombies pandemic fiction.
Everyone has Covid on the brain at the moment. It is easy to forget that pandemics* occur with painful frequency and that we’ve got a nasty habit of forgetting the previous outbreak – ebola, zika, swine flu, SARS… Our forgetfulness is an interesting trait, but it could be argued that our love of pandemic fiction is where we pour our fears of the next outbreak.
Considering that the risk of pandemics is increasing in both spark and spread, that means pandemic fiction isn’t going to stop any time soon. Long live the zombie!
But it is also worth remembering that pandemic fiction doesn’t have to be a fear of disease and death. It can represent our fear of an all-consuming society that will overrun us, swamp us with mediocrity, and drag us down to become just another mindless member of the hoard. Odd that it comes up a lot during uncertain political climates.
Stay safe. Read a good book. Or a bad one. Whatever.
Although we are currently living through a pandemic that has disrupted our lives and will shape the course of humanity, pandemics have been around since the dawn of civilization, as have stories about fictional pandemics. So now seems like as good a time as any to explore how fictional pandemics have evolved over time, and what they say about their own time.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
* Sidenote: Pandemics have a wider spread than epidemics. Usually, an epidemic is limited to an area, or country, while a pandemic spreads more widely, often globally.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/148945
Tyson Adams 