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Some questions from one of our readers

  • John Madera

    • Christopher Newgent asked me to pose these questions to the Big Other community:

    Can anyone think of a dystopian novel set in the past, in a more pastoral setting, where it would only take a big enough mob with pitchforks (maybe some black powder rifles) to overthrow a dystopian regime?

    Can a dystopian regime, and thus storytelling premise, only exist in a more present or future age, when weapons exist on a government level that make a revolutionary mob easily disposed of?

    • John Madera is the author of Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024) and Nomad Science (Spuyten Duyvil Press, forthcoming in 2026).  His  fiction is also published in Conjunctions, Salt Hill, Hobart, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His poetry is also published in elimae, Sixth Finch, Contrapuntos, and elsewhere. His criticism is published in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, two-time New York State Council on the Arts awardee John Madera lives in New York City, where he runs Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.

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