Pandemic Literature: An Escape into Reality | The Importance of Literature in a Pandemic

2020, the most impactful year of my life thus far, will be a year I never forget. With many lives lost due to the Corona Virus pandemic, people are living in a constant state of fear for their lives as well as that of their close friends and family. Many people have never felt such isolation in addition to the already present struggles evident in life. Writers turn to their writing to cope, reason and articulate their fears and experiences while living through perilous times. What do readers read during this uncertainty? A lot of people are turning to fiction in this unprecedented time to be comforted by fictitious worlds and stories. Literature is the language needed by those wishing to find comfort in an escape from their reality. Conversely, is this truly what people need exposure to during the pandemic of 2020? What is the importance of literature during this difficult time?

Fiction is often written to share an alternate reality or world for readers to explore. Literature is essential in capturing life lived during the time of a pandemic. Pandemic literature is a genre not widely talked about in literary circles, nor is it something that is a first choice to pick up and dive into. Pandemic literature is just as its name states: literature written during or about a certain pandemic. Understandably, people would not find comfort in choosing to read stories that parallel the struggles of the world they are living in. However, literature is used for this exact scenario. It allows voices and situations to present themselves in a way that have not previously been before. It grants readers the opportunity to feel there is a world they can turn to that understands their pains. Pandemic literature allows readers to find comfort in a shared struggle. If readers viewed the works of Pandemic literature as written to those living through a pandemic rather than written to educate on a pandemic, readers would have a different relationship with the genre. 

The Pandemic literature genre is broad with very different types of writing. Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a straightforward and telling piece without regard for the feelings of readers. It will not be everyone’s favorite book to be comforted by. However, it can grant some sense of comfort in knowing there are people from previous eras and pandemics that know what you are going through; it can allow you to feel less alone. In another light, They Came Like Swallows is a pandemic piece that focuses more on character growth and story rather than extreme hardship faced in a pandemic. Here is a list containing a few great books of the Pandemic literature genre worth visiting:

Twilight in Delhi by Ahmed Ali 

A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

“The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

The Plague by Albert Camus

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

If this genre becomes broadly viewed as capturing the essence of a pandemic rather than trying to escape from it, discussing our discomforts and troubles will become a security. Discomfort is not always a bad thing; being uncomfortable with a certain topic just means it has not been examined enough. History is already telling of what happens during a pandemic due to statistics, numbers of lives lost, and the introduction of new policies. Let literature be the vice that encourages exposure, conversation, and comfort in this difficult time. We are shining examples of what we live through. Why wouldn’t the literature we write and expose ourselves to reflect what we go through and how we come out of it?

Works Cited

Ali, Ahmed. Twilight in Delhi: A Novel. Bombay: Oxford U.P, 1967. Internet resource.

Camus, Albert. The Plague. London: Hamilton, 1948.

Crichton, Michael. The Andromeda Strain. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1969.

Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731. A Journal of the Plague Year. London ; New York :Penguin Books, 2003.

García, Márquez G, and Edith Grossman. Love in the Time of Cholera. , 1988.

Maxwell, William. They Came Like Swallows. New York: Vintage. 1997. 

Porter KA. Pale Horse, Pale Rider: three short novels. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company; 1939

The Masque of the Red Death, and Other Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe. New York, NY: Caedmon, 1988. Sound recording.

Whitehead, Colson. Zone One: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2011. Print.