The website, www.politerature.com, is dedicated to politically progressive literature. The idea is to seek out, share, promote and discuss fiction that embodies and expresses political ideas, fiction that takes sides with the workers and oppressed, that raises consciousness about racism or colonialism or women’s and LGBTQ oppression, about war and intervention, about destroying the Earth for corporate profit, about class and unions. To honor and develop a kind of literature that runs counter to the conventional wisdom that true art cannot be political.
We'll be posting book reviews, notes, news and commentary. And we'll be carrying on a conversation that ranges over our thoughts and ideas about politics and literature and where they meet. That conversation has now begun. In the first installment, we ponder plotlines--and whether we've had enough of family dysfunction stories.
Politerature is based on the belief that political fiction can open minds, inform, give insight, inspire, strengthen, and arm those fighting for a better world.
If that sounds familiar, similar to my slant here at Read Red, well yes, but what we'll be trying to do at Politerature is different. For one thing, Politerature is a collaboration, initially between one other person and me, and perhaps with more folks getting involved eventually. My partner at Politerature, author and teacher Meredith Sue Willis, is a leftist but not a revolutionist; we do come at this from different angles, which we're hoping will make for an interesting exchange of views. Politerature is in various other ways too something of a more formal endeavor than Read Red will ever be.
I will continue blogging here, and I hope you'll keep checking in at Read Red where I'll post my own individual unmediated rants, reviews and responses to literary news.
I hope you will also regularly check out Politerature. And spread the word! Like us on Facebook where there's now a Politerature page. Let your reader, writer, and activist friends know about POLITERATURE.com. If you want to read more political fiction, stick with us, follow this project as it develops, and let's see if we can't have some impact on building the literary left wing.
