How the Revolution Began...
Wednesday May 26, 2010
What to do with all those books sitting on your shelves, taking up valuable space? Why not turn them into a nice, cosy fire to keep you warm through the winter months? From Qin Shihuang to Farenheit 451, book burning has always had a curious appeal; and so I’m delighted to say that my short story on the subject has been published on Necessary Fiction. Here’s an extract.
Two years later, they outlawed books of poetry. There were protests, mainly from the poets themselves, but the reasoning of the authorities was sound: light verse, they said, was inconsequential; ballads were stories in disguise, and thus should, for the sake of consistency, go the same way as novels; love lyrics fostered delusion; sonnets were impossibly elitist; limericks inclined the mind to disrespect; and haiku — well, haiku were just downright odd, and foreign with it. Besides, nobody had read any poetry for years, even if — unaccountably — there were many who persisted in writing it…
There story is here. I hope you enjoy it!
