Dictator literature

Dictator literature (abbreviated as dic-lit^[1]^[2] or dictator lit^[3]) is the body of literature written by or attributed to dictators.^[4]^[5] Although some dictator literature consists of poetry, most are prose,^[6] including such works as novels,^[7] theoretical texts, tracts, and memoirs.^[5] Vladimir Lenin is considered to be the father of dictator literature in the 20th century,^[8] and many other dictators of the century followed suit with their own writings, such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong.^[6]

References

^ Self, Will (2018-04-25). "Dictator Literature by Daniel Kalder review – the deathly prose of dic-lit". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
^ Kofman, Ava (2018). "Dic Lit". Dissent. 65 (2): 173–175. doi:10.1353/dss.2018.0042. Retrieved 7 August 2025.
^ Dickey, Colin (2018-03-22). "Why Dictators Write". The New Republic. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
^ Kalder 2018, p. xiii.
^ ^a ^b Hammond 2020, p. 82.
^ ^a ^b Senoussi 2023, p. 255.
^ Spencer 2021, p. 4.
^ Kalder 2018, p. 3.

Hammond, Andrew (2020). "'Our Embattled Humanity': Global Literature in an Authoritarian Age". In Hammond, Andrew (ed.). The Palgrave handbook of Cold War literature. Palgrave handbooks. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 63–82. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-38973-4_4. ISBN 978-3-030-38973-4.
Kalder, Daniel (2018-03-06). The Infernal Library: On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of Literacy. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-1-62779-342-1.
Senoussi, Mohammed (2023-03-15). "The Psychology of Dictatorship: A Journey into Muammar Gaddafi's Mind in Yasmina Khadra's The Dictator's Last Night". Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 64 (2): 241–256. doi:10.1080/00111619.2021.1992337. ISSN 0011-1619.
Spencer, Robert (2021). Dictators, dictatorship and the african novel: fictions of the state under neoliberalism. New Comparisons in World Literature. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-66556-2. ISBN 978-3-030-66556-2.