Novels about dystopias

The Castle

Franz Kafka

An allegory of the human struggle against an illogical bureaucracy. A land surveyor, known only as K, is constantly frustrated in his attempts to gain entrance into a mysterious castle, which is administered by an extraordinarily complicated and inaccessible bureaucratic hierarchy.

The Handmaid's

Tale

Margaret Atwood

In the world of the near future, who will control women? Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

Bradbury's dystopian novel portrays a future society where reading is forbidden and firemen start fires to burn books. Written during the Cold War, Bradbury saw the novel as a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as being composed partial information devoid of context.

Paris in the

Twentieth

Century

Jules Verne

Written in 1863 but first published only in 1994, this book is about a young man who lives in a technologically advanced, but culturally backwards, future. Set in August 1960, it paints a grim view of the future. Many of Verne's predictions are remarkably on target. His publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, did not release the book because he thought it was too unbelievable.