Books that help with election anxiety

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2024

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s a big year for voting! There are national elections in 64 countries, affecting more than half the world. And many of us are anxious about an uncertain future. FT Weekend columnist Nilanjana Roy had a good idea in the midst of her own election fever: to find perspective, she turned to literature. Today, Nila shares what she came away with, and recommends books that can help reframe how we think about elections, no matter where we live.

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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap. We’re on X @lifeandartpod and on email at [email protected]. We are grateful for reviews on Apple and Spotify. And please share this episode with your friends!

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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):

– Nilanjana’s column on literature and elections: https://on.ft.com/3z9whiy

– The books that she recommends in this episode:

• Raag Darbari by Shrilal Sukla

• A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

• Modi’s India by Christophe Jaffrelot

• Quarterlife by Devika Rege

• Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

• The Age of the Strongman by our own Gideon Rachman

• Another England by Caroline Lucas

• Infomocracy by Malka Older

– Nilanjana is on Instagram @nilanjanasroy and on X @nilanjanaroy

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Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Life and Art from F.T. Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos.
0:06.8	2024 is a huge year for voting. It's actually the biggest in history. At least 64 countries are holding nationwide elections.
0:15.0	This includes the U.S., the U.K., Indonesia, South Africa, Mexico.
0:22.7	Basically, people are voting everywhere.
0:27.1	And all in all, these elections will affect 4 billion people.
0:32.9	My colleague Nelangina Roy lives in India, which also recently had a massive election.
0:36.5	It was a pretty anxiety-ridden one, as many are these days.
0:38.4	So Nila found herself looking for some perspective.
0:40.1	She turned to her bookshelf to read stories of voting from literature.
0:44.7	Nila writes a column about books for FT Weekend, and she's a novelist herself.
0:49.1	And she's with us today from her home in New Delhi to share what she came away with.
0:53.4	Nila, hi.
0:55.2	Welcome back to the show.
0:57.4	Such a pleasure, even in the middle of an,
0:59.8	what seems to be an endless year of elections.
1:01.6	Yeah, I know, totally.
1:04.2	It's really so wonderful to host you again.
1:07.9	So, Nila, you recently wrote a column on this topic,
1:13.8	and you described the Indian election contest as a marathon. Can I ask why,
1:21.0	in the depths of this marathon, you decided to turn to fiction about elections? That's a good question.
1:27.4	And I think it had a lot to do with election-related anxiety, which is happening to a lot of us in countries that are
1:29.3	on the edge of democracy and autocracy.
	...

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