The Politics of Prose
On Reading As A Political Act
I’ve been working in the book industry for nearly ten years. I started out working at a bookstore, then, driven by a passion to platform diverse books and authors, I started a “bookstagram” account. Since then, I’ve been a sensitivity reader, an editor, a writer, a book reviewer, a book marketer, a curator, and a book buyer. Books are my profession as well as my passion… I like to joke that I’m a ‘professional bookworm’.
I’ve been a book lover for as long as I can remember. Like many readers, I often turn to books as an escape, or as a source of joy and pleasure. I read to learn, I read to understand. I read to journey into new worlds and realities. And one of the things about reading that I’ve always held as truth is that reading is an inherently political act.
All true art is political, and books are no different. Books are viewed as tools for radical change, but also as weapons. Words can help us give voice to our feelings; Change minds; Engage us in critical thinking; Evoke strong feelings; Encourage understanding; Grant ideas; Spread information and opinion; Challenge the status quo; Inspire rebellions…
I mean, there’s a reason books are being banned, and burned. There’s a reason. these acts, through history are tied to authoritarian and fascistic regimes. Some of Adolf Hitler’s first acts as German Chancellor included stripping scholars from their academic positions when their politics didn’t align. Followed soon after by book burnings by Nazi student groups. The books that were burned were what were considered “Un-German” books… But who decides that? When the books include criticisms of government policy, political regimes, and facism. When they include books about big ideas, and social justice… Where do you draw the line?
In the oft-quoted words of Heinrich Hein, a German Jewish poet, “where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.”
We’re not too far from this kind of mentality now. Under the guise of protecting children, thousands of books have been banned or challenged in the US in the last few years. Many of these books are by LGBTQ2SIA+ or BIPOC authors, or cover content relating to LGBTQ2SIA+ people or race.
Book bans are dangerous. Silencing authors; Isolating children and readers who are going through the same experiences a character or a writer may have experienced; Potentially even harming children’s development. And when the authors, books, and viewpoints most challenged are those coming from marginalized communities, you’re only doubling-down on the harm to these communities, by increasing the potential for suppression and violence against them.
Reading will always be political. Yes, even if you’re only reading “romantasy”, or celebrity memoirs. No book is written or read in a vacuum. There has to be room to think critically about, and engage thoughtfully with whatever you read - whether its alien erotica, fictionalized accounts of historical events, Spongebob fanfiction, or political theory.
People turn to books during everyday events, personal challenges, and political unrest.
We saw this with the surge of sales of dystopian books like The Handmaid’s Tale, 1984, and Fahrenheit 451 in the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election. The Handmaid’s Tale itself has become an incredibly popular rallying point and symbol for women’s resistance, as the US Supreme Court continues to threaten the reproductive rights and body autonomy of women.
We saw this with the boom in dystopian fiction for young adults in the late 2000s and early 2010s with series like The Hunger Games and Divergent at the top of bestseller lists, while the world was grappling with the realities of the US’ ‘War on Terror’, and reeling from the 2008 financial crisis.
We’re also seeing this now, as Israel commits mass genocide and violence against the Palestinian people, sanctioned by Western powers, and livestreamed to us, around the world, to the smartphones in our hands, and the screens in our homes.
Just days after October 7th, 2023 - the award ceremony to honour Palestinian author Adania Shibli was cancelled by the Frankfurt book fair, “due to the war in Israel”. The novel, Minor Detail is a short and haunting book that tells the true story of the rape and murder of a Palestinian Bedouin Girl by Israeli soldiers, in 1949.
Children’s books about Palestinian children were removed from schools and libraries, being deemed antisemitic. Authors were uninvited from events and conferences; speeches and events were cancelled. Authors and publishers who spoke or posted or wrote in favour of Palestine faced negative repercussions, including their books being removed from libraries, and their funding being pulled. Meanwhile, in Palestine, universities, schools, and libraries have been bombed, and reduced to rubble. Journalists are targeted and murdered. All the while, history is being rewritten, in front of our eyes.
In solidarity, organizations like Publishers For Palestine have begun efforts like #ReadPalestineWeek, encouraging readers to read books by Palestinian authors, including fiction and poetry, alongside the nonfiction and history. Publishers like Haymarket Books have made books about Palestinian solidarity and anti-imperialism available for free, aiming to equip readers with knowledge and tools to inform and inspire.
The truth is: Books can help us make sense of our world. Even if it’s in abstract, or through metaphor. There’s a clear power in art that depicts complex and uncertain times. Art that mirrors life. Art that inspires critical thinking. Art that challenges you.
It doesn’t escape me that many, if not most, of my favourite reads this year have been about failures of empire:
Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar (2024): A beautiful & brilliant novel about art, legacy, martyrdom, and the disposability of brown bodies.
Still Life With Bones - Alexa Hagerty (2023): A devastating account of brutal genocides facilitated by the US government, by a forensic anthropologist responsible for exhuming, identifying, & proving what happened.
I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman (1995): A dark, devastating, yet ultimately beautiful and tender dystopian novel very obviously shaped by the author’s own experiences fleeing from Nazi persecution.
Recognizing the Stranger - Isabella Hammad (2024): A brilliant and beautiful work, using the lens of narrative device to frame the realities of Palestinan people living under occupation and violence.
The Message - Ta-Nehisi Coates (2024): A measured and thoughtful exploration of the ways that the stories we tell can shape our realities, told through the lens of slavery & Afrofuturism, book bans, and the subjugation of Palestinian people by the Israeli government.
Fable for the End of the World - Ava Reid (2025): An immersive and heartfelt dystopian story about a world in the shackles of capitalism that uses violence as currency, and the power of love, care, & community against all odds.
One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This - Omar El Akkad (2025): An emotionally poignant and evocative break up letter with the West, critiquing Western imperialism & neoliberalism.
Educators and publishing and literacy professionals love to use the talking point that reading builds empathy, especially in children. And that’s true. Empathy is an unconditionally important building block for the human condition. In creating kindness, solidarity, community, love. Core tenets to develop as a society, as a people.
But as a concept, “reading builds empathy” is quite a simplistic one. This is something that writer Elaine Castillo writes very thoughtfully about in her 2022 essay collection How To Read Now, another brilliant book I read in 2024. When we look at books like they’re tools alone, we’re left in this complicated sphere where critical consumption starts to evade us. We find ourselves in scenarios where we read a book about a character from XYZ community, and think that means we know all we need to about this community.
We view books as a social currency, or as a way to virtue signal: “See, I can’t be racist. I have a pristine (unopened) copy of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time on my bedside table.”
But what happens next? After the buying of the book, maybe before the deciding to arrange it artfully on a bookshelf with other colour coordinated book spines. What happens when you crack it open, and read it?
Is building empathy, aka finally seeing queer people, trans people, or people of colour as human enough? Is that actually even what’s happening?
In 2020, after the brutal murder of George Floyd, #BlackLivesMatter protests saw a massive surge in popularity and engagement. In a time when offices, restaurants, and entertainment venues were closed, and many of us were stuck at home with little to do but bear witness. Little to do but pay attention. Books by Black authors, and books about race, discrimination, and antiracism shot to the top of bestseller lists. Publishers created DEI committees. Publishing employees organized solidarity actions to challenge their own complicity in antiblackness and racism.
And now, here we are, 4 years later. Backlash against DEI initiatives and committees has been huge, and book bans have increased exponentially over the last few years, broadly targeting concepts like “critical race theory” and racism. Top leadership levels in the publishing industry are almost overwhelmingly white.
One anecdotal win is that I do organically see a lot more effort being made to highlight diverse books, especially from reviewers on platforms like #BookTok - which has become a massive recommendation and book promotion engine. #BookTok, a subset of TikTok devoted to discussing, reviewing, and recommending books, has had a huge impact on the book industry, driving tons of sales for new and backlist books, and building authors, books, and series into near celebrity status.
However, along with most popular things, #BookTok isn’t viewed without its share of criticism. As a platform and a media tool so dominated by women, and queer and BIPOC creators of course there are haters. There are a lot of valid criticisms of Booktok, but also some I disagree with.
One of the dominant complaints about #BookTok is that its making readers dumber, or ruining the publishing industry, or in some cases, ruining books (as a concept?). I have complicated feelings about this criticism, that I’m still parsing through.
I think that the creation and popularity of #BookTok has introduced us to another kind of gatekeeper than popular media has seen in the past. An accessible gatekeeper, who’s not unlike you or me. In many cases, the books that are the most popular are from genres like romance, and fantasy - genres that have traditionally been viewed as lowbrow (although have arguable been a foundational backbone in book publishing and sales).
I think dismissing popular pieces of media is a time honoured tradition. There’s a need some of us have to distance ourselves from popular culture and media “Oh me? I would never deign to listen to something as basic as Beyoncé.”
The truth is, a lot of this gatekeeping (and this gatekeeping of gatekeepers) comes from an elitism that I cannot abide. Art doesn’t only have value if YOU assign value to it.
I for one, love reading genre forward books. Those who know me, know I love vampire fiction, dragons, and magic. I love love. I love a book that makes me giggle and kick my feet. As I mentioned before, reading brings me joy, and I read a lot as a source of escapism. But even the escapism can only escape so much, at least for me.
When your existence in general is considered political, there’s no way to remove politics from your understanding or experiencing of the world.
What inspired this long-form reflection was seeing book reviewers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok complain that we should take the politics out of writing. This complaint comes often when authors are criticized for their real life politics and statements. Or when a book is beloved but contains harmful representations or perspectives, especially when they’re about people from marginalized communities.
The truth is the ability to separate the artist from the art is one of the greatest myths that is has become popularized in the present-day.
It’s unrealistic. Dismissive. Unimaginably naive.
[We] are terrified of being made to feel uncomfortable. Of being forced to have a non neutral perspective on something we love, or have loved. Our nostalgia, or our love for something innately turns many of us fearful about critiques against it — especially when they seem like they may be valid critiques.
Whether you love a book or hate a book, or somewhere in between - there has to be room for critical analysis of it. Of challenging your understanding of it. Of seeing where the writer is coming from, as well as seeing how the book is landing with readers, and with the political climate and context of the book’s release.
Even if its unbeknownst to you, the context of the author’s own experiences, beliefs, and perspectives seep into the work. They shape their characters and their decisions. They shape the setting of the world, and the reader’s experiences in it.
The truth is, it takes active effort to read something as completely apolitical.