Dic-Lit …

… Dictator Literature by Daniel Kalder review – the deathly prose of dic-lit | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The afterlife of Hitler’s dreadful, poisonous, ill-written book is possibly the most disturbing: it still sells in shed-loads throughout the world. Not so Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, the mass production of which once threatened to overwhelm China’s printing presses – it, together with the humongous amount of drivel attributed to the Great Helmsman (mostly written by dependable henchmen), ended up in landfill. Perhaps the critical verdict on the dictators described in these pages – variously lynched, shot and otherwise extemporised to death – should make us a little more sanguine about their literary efforts. After all, it’s one thing for your books to be remaindered – quite another to have your body pulped.