Literature® by Guillermo Stitch

What a lot of people don’t appreciate these days is that as recently as the frst half of the last century, what they called literature was a very, very different thing to the thing we have now.

Tomorrow sees the release of Guillermo Stitch‘s debut dystopian novella, Literature®. It’s a pithy, intricate and witty satire set in a world in which books are banned and reading them is considered a terrorist act.

Stitch, who has contributed to the Telegraph, Red magazine and Lonely Planet, is the kind of writer that makes the reader feel as though they’re in good hands from the very first paragraph. His confident, effortless and to the point style is as nutritious as it is entertaining. Sample a bit of Bradbury and mix it with a dash of Huxley, and you’ll have a pretty good idea why so many critics are excited by the release of Literature®.

Here’s the blurb:

We don’t know exactly when Literature® takes place and we don’t know exactly where. All we know is that Philip Marlowe would fit right in.

We don’t get Marlowe though. We get Billy Stringer. And Billy is on nobody’s trail.

He’s the prey.

The day hasn’t begun very well for Billy. He just messed up his first big assignment, he’s definitely going to be late for work, his girlfriend won’t get back to him and, for reasons she has something to do with, he’s dressed like a clown.

Also, he’s pretty sure someone is going to kill him today. But then, that’s an occupational hazard, when you’re a terrorist.

He’s a bookworm too, which wouldn’t be a problem–or particularly interesting–except that in Billy’s world, fiction is banned. Reading it is what makes him an outlaw.

Why? Because people need to get to work.

It’s fight or flight time for Billy and he’s made his choice. But he has to see Jane, even if it’s for the last time–to explain it all to her, before she finds out what he has become. That means staying alive for a little while.

And the odds are against him.

Literature® is available in paperback and on Kindle at Amazon as from tomorrow, 1st July, or you can preorder it today. For updates, check Stitch out on Twitter.

I’ll be reviewing Literature® on Dystopic in the next few weeks, so watch this space!