Dictators and Strongmen: Oppressive Regimes in Historical Fiction

When: 1898-1972

Where: Uganda

Over the course of generations and continents, one family reckons with the consequences of relocation, resistance, collusion, and separation. After being taken from his village in India to work on the East African Railway by the British, Pirbhai makes a choice to ensure his survival that will reverberate down through the years. His granddaughters, who come of age under the ruthless regime of Idi Amin and his expulsion of South Asians from Uganda, are forced to confront their family’s past and how far they’re willing to go in the present to find a place for themselves.

When: 1923

Where: El Salvador

Two sisters are separated—and then reunited—by their father, a man enmeshed in the regime of El Gran Pendejo, who chooses the younger girl to become his oracle. As the violence increases, including in their Indigenous childhood community near a volcano, the sisters are forced to flee for their lives. But the consequences of their experiences under El Gran Pendejo’s cruel fist ripple down through the years and into the rest of their lives.

When: 1934

Where: Soviet Union

Based on an alleged phone call between Joseph Stalin and the novelist and poet Boris Pasternak in June 1934, Kadare reconstructs a three-minute conversation where the two discuss the recent arrest of Soviet poet Osip Mandelstam. Drawing on different versions of that call, from the official transcript to accounts from witnesses such as British-Russian philosopher Isaiah Berlin and Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, Kadare composes a compelling rumination on the connection between writers and tyranny.

When: 1957

Where: Spain

In 1950s Spain, the shadow of the Civil War hangs over Madrid. Daniel Matheson, newly arrived with his parents, doesn’t know that, though. He just wants to explore the country of his mother’s birth through the lens of his camera. But when he meets Ana, a hotel maid whose parents were killed for opposing General Francisco Franco, he begins to discover the darkness hiding behind Spain’s cheery tourist facade.

When: 1960

Where: Dominican Republic

This is the story of the three Mirabal sisters, real women who lived in 1960s Dominican Republic, as retold by their surviving sister Dede. Known as “la mariposas,” Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa fought to overthrow the Trujillo dictatorship and were brutally murdered for their efforts. Alvarez explores their teenage years, the experiences that turned them into revolutionaries, and the impact they left behind even after their deaths.

When: 1970s-80s

Where: Argentina

During Argentina’s Dirty War, dissidents, activists, and other civilians were disappeared by the military junta ruling the country. This reality becomes all too personal one day for a boy in Buenos Aires when he returns home to find his mother missing. Jumping years forward to his adulthood, the boy who’s now a man tries to reconstruct the fractured memories of his mother and the activism she fought and died for.

When: 1978-1988

Where: Pakistan

In 1988, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules airplane carrying General Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator of Pakistan, explodes, killing him. But what caused one of the sturdiest planes in the world to go up in smoke? It might’ve been Ali Shigri, an Air Force pilot and Silent Drill Commander of the Fury Squadron, who’s been on a mission to avenge his dead father for years. Or maybe it was the CIA. It could’ve even been a mechanical failure or human error. But whatever the case may be, there’s a line of people just waiting to assassinate the Pakistani dictator, and as much as Shigri might want to be at the front of it, he may not be able to get to ul-Haq first.

When: 1970s

Where: Chile

To seven-year-old M, the world makes sense, and it makes sense because it’s dictated by a set of principles based on her father’s life as a traveling salesman. M is enchanted with her father’s work and finally convinces him to take her along as he sells hardware throughout Pinochet-era Chile. The state of her country and the precarious nature of her father’s work barely register to M. That all changes when they meet up with a strange photographer during the course of their travels. Suddenly, the life they’ve created for themselves in these tumultuous times is put in jeopardy.

When: 1977

Where: Uruguay

Under the military dictatorship of 1970s Uruguay, the rights of everyday citizens are at risk and homosexuality is a punishable offense. So when five singers discover an isolated cape, they claim it as their sanctuary, returning over the next three decades together, alone, or with lovers in tow. There, they try to find some semblance of relief from the pressures of society and their families as they fight every day to live authentic lives.

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