Literary fiction that explores contagion is thin on the ground, especially when compared with literature about that other grim reaper – war. It can also be argued that the 1918 flu did find its way into Anglophone literature, just not explicitly. The techniques haven’t yet been applied to literary fiction, but they will be. It may turn out that literary treatment of the 1918 flu is in fact just gathering steam, a century on. The world has changed since the 1918 pandemic: writers are less squeamish about the politics of the body.

Source: The Guardian August 07, 2020 12:00 UTC