There’ll always be a place for dystopian futures in fiction. Award-winning author Fríða Ísberg picks five of the best about state control.
LoveStar by Andri Snær Magnason
An Icelandic novel from 2002 set in the future. LoveStar is a love-matching device that finds your true soulmate; the protagonists are a young couple in love until surprise, surprise, the woman is allotted to another.
Magma by Thóra Hjörleifsdóttir
Another Icelandic novel, this one published in 2019, which explores the different references young men and women have for romantic relationships when the former group is conditioned by pornography, and the latter by Disney movies.
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
A poetic, masterfully written novel about occupation and warfare. A young woman is captured on the occupied bank and brought back to the soldiers’ camp – a minor detail in a war report that a researcher becomes obsessed with 70 years later.
Kallocain by Karin Boye
The Swedish 1984, first published in 1940. The dystopian novel is a future vision of policed and militarised surveillance society under state control, with a truth drug in the mix.
The Employees by Olga Ravn
It is the 22nd century, and the novel consists of staff interviews onboard the Six-Thousand Ship, set in space, manned by a crew of both humans and humanoids. A short, wonderful, poetic book by the Danish author.
