Tyranny Lessons

The 21st century has seen a resurgence of authoritarian rule that often replicates past totalitarian systems, but is more refined and nuanced in its strategies of repression and exploitation. Entertainment, media, international travel, and prosperity create the appearance of flourishing individual freedoms while our lives and thoughts are increasingly monitored and manipulated. This disturbing trend raises the question of what exactly is meant by tyranny in its contemporary forms.

In Tyranny Lessons, international writers from a dozen countries in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas address these challenges as only literary writing can: through the perspective of lived experiences, imagined futures, and personal struggles.

Tyranny Lessons also features the photography of Danny Lyon, the first photographer of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, whose work documented the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

Frank Stewart is a writer, translator, and founding editor of Mnoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing. He is professor emeritus of English at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa.