Infectious diseases, epidemics, pandemics have always fascinated writers and historians. What happens when supernatural forces disrupt the settled and orderly life? What happens when people lose their sense of control? What happens when a man is ruled by an invisible force that turns the whole world upside down?
What to read during self-isolation or quarantine? We have some suggestions for you!
Albert Camus, The Plague (1947)
The novel in five parts chronicles the time when the city of Oran on the Algerian coast was ruled by a "dark deity", the plague. This is the story of a city with only around two hundred thousand inhabitants, an isolated city in which the inhabitants trapped within its borders must play a game. A game of searching for freedom, justice, truth and beauty.
Stephen King, The Stand (1978)
In the novel The Stand, the American modern classic Stephen King imagined a world in which the world was attacked by a "super flu" nicknamed Captain Trips. This is the story of a group that is the only survivor of a deadly epidemic that kills as much as 99 percent of the world's population. This ten-episode apocalyptic novella was also adapted into a television series.
Dean Koontz, Eyes of Darkness (1981)
Koontz's novel about the "biological weapon" Wuhan-400 was placed on a pedestal by the world public as the most prophetic literary work when the coronavirus appeared. The fictional virus from Koontz's novel is "the most important and dangerous Chinese biological weapon of the last decade". In recent weeks, the novel has jumped to the top of Amazon's best-seller list. Sales of the electronic version of the book jumped by an astonishing three thousand percent in the last three weeks, the publisher Headline also announced.
Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)
The novel tells about a love triangle that weaves together between three main characters: Juvenal Urbino, Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza. This is a novel about the immense love between a man and a woman who cannot marry in their twenties because they are too young, and not in their eighties because they are too old. Florentino remains faithful to his fiancée Fermina throughout his life, even when Fermina marries someone else. His longing is so unbearable that it can be compared to the tragic consequences of the cholera epidemic that ravages the Caribbean coast.
Dan Brown, Inferno (2013)
The author of world bestsellers (The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, The Lost Simbo...) also uses conspiracy theory in this novel, where he intertwines history with the actual present, the key problem of which is overpopulation. Mysterious forces decide to solve this problem with a kind of hellish plan, within the framework of which a large part of the world's population should become infertile. The film adaptation of this apocalyptic novel was made in 2016. The main role was played by Tom Hanks.
Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam (2013)
The author of the famous Girl's Tale wrote a dystopian trilogy that predicts the end of humanity as a result of the scientific-technological-capitalist arrogance of the human race. There are unusually bright and bloodthirsty raccoons, horses, raccoons and hounds. Butterfly wings the size of dinner plates, chicken breasts and zucchini growing on trees. A flood without water. The story is told by a man once called Jimmy, now called the Yeti by a new race of green-eyed people, who lives in a tree wrapped in a stinky sheet. If he wants to survive, he must go on a dangerous journey full of memories. A story full of imaginative excesses is a warning of increasing human stupidity.
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