COVID-19 crisis had exerted an impact on every woke of life since its dawn—including fiction.
By the end of 2020, Jodi Picoult, an American novelist, rendered the crisis into words in a book. This, for sure, may have broken all early-stages fiction-writing rules that early novelists adopted.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, I couldn’t even read, much less write,” said Picoult, “I didn’t have the focus.”
Back then, she already started writing her novel “Wish You Were Here,” which she now published and is available to read.
Picoult expressed the way she feels when writing, as writing helps reduce anxiety for her. “Writing the book was therapeutic,” she said.
Also, the writer announced her friends’ supportive vibes that helped her arrive at such a publication. “I have written a book about an experience that everyone on the planet lived,” the writer said.
Plagues over history vs. COVID-19
The world has lived various pandemics and tragedies such as World Wars and various plagues. The literary responses to such crises were “an act of absorbing trauma.” However, the COVID-19 pandemic has exerted a massive impact.
It only lasted one year and a half, and fiction narrating it filled the fall publication. There are a number of authors who penned COVID-19-fiction, including Picoult, Louise Erdrich, Gary Shteyngart, and Hilma Wolitzer. The list still goes on.
‘Our Country Friends’
Gary Shteyngart, who penned “Our Country Friends”, adopted the Russian formalists’ style, particularly reflecting Chekhov’s. But he added COVID-19 flavor.
His novel focuses on eight persons, who happen to be friends and gather in a far place when the virus strikes the earth—‘SPOILER ALERT’.
‘A time Outside This Time’
Amitava Kumar, on the other hand, wrote a seemingly sarcastic novel, “A Time Outside This Time.” It features an Indian-American author, who tries at his work to justify Donald Trump. While Kumar started penning the novel before COVID-19 strikes the globe, he injected it into the book.
“A minister of health said that the rays of the sun would build immunity, said Kumar “So, I was thinking, what exactly is the work a novel can do in the time of the novel coronavirus?
“I’m telling you all this because I wasn’t at all in doubt about mentioning the pandemic—I didn’t think it could be avoided.”
