Classics and other books on pandemics

In these weeks of World crisis by coronavirus sales, inquiries and reviews have skyrocketed creative writing classic and not so classic about pandemics and other disasters that have plagued the world. Cyclical disasters that have decimated humanity throughout its history and that, as now, have been a source of inspiration for other greats literary stories. This is a Quick review some of them.

The Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio

Classic among classics, this work by Boccaccio tells the story of ten young from Florence, seven women and three men who, fleeing the plague bubonic of 1348, take refuge in a villa in the country. They will be there for fourteen days and to pass the time they decide to count turn-based stories every day. And those stories are of all kinds, from shows and full of wit y esperanza but also tragic.

Diary of the year of the plague - Daniel Defoe

Your success Robinson Crusoe It overshadowed much of the other works by this English writer who lived between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. But this title, over time, it became referent of other authors like Camus. It's about a fictional story about a man's experiences in 1665, when London suffered the call Great plague, the last scourge of this epidemic of plague which lasted a year. It is narrated chronologically and features Defoe's own experience as a child living in the time.

The Masque of the Red Death - Edgar Allan Poe

You can not miss this story, one of the best known, of the teacher of the more gothic horror who was the great writer of Boston. It was published just now in May but from 1842. The story takes place in an imaginary region, whose inhabitants were suffering a terrible pandemic so called, the red death, which in addition to being contagious very quickly, produced large blood loss their victims.

Prosperous, prince of this kingdom, and without caring much what happens, decides take refuge with his friends and courtiers in an abbey. There, isolated and carefree, they spend their days with all kinds of luxuries, amusements and provisions in abundance. And it is in one of those diversions that they organize, a masquerade, when a unforeseen guest.

Plague - Albert Camus

Is the play best known of the French author and has become one of the best-selling books of the moment. He begins by quoting precisely a phrase from the Diary of the year of the plagueby Defoe and is set in the late forties XNUMXth century in oran. The city is closed for an unexpected plague outbreak bubonic and its plot recreates an initial contagion again until the epidemic passes.

The key is in the depth that Camus prints on his approach both individual and collective of society when facing the situation, and also in the humanity of his characters.

Essay on blindness - Jose Saramago

Other title essential on the theme that Saramago recreated in this sudden blindness epidemic that spreads in a fulminant way. Locked in quarantine and lost in the city, the sick have to learn to survive at all costs without losing the Cordura, appealing to the solidarity and against the selfish response of others.

In times of contagion - Paolo Giordano

It was published on March 20 and is written in real time for this author and theoretical physicist Italian, as the coronavirus epidemic in Italy. Shaped like diario, Giordano (The solitude of prime numbers) is sharing his reflections and emotions about this situation, which, above all, is not new but requires, once again, the will of all to see us as one global community.

Revelation - Stephen King

Another indispensable here is King, who in this title addresses the spread of a flu virusl, artificially created as a possible bacteriological weapon, by the United States and the world, causing the death of most of the population. Your son, joe hill propose another similar premise in Fuego, where its protagonists suffer the worldwide plague of a spore that causes spontaneous combustion of those who are ill.

The inhospitable planet - David Wallace-Wells

Raised from the cluster of phenomena caused by climate change, including the spread of pests, the author analyzes the señales waths up behind and what is to come, perhaps even worse. It's about a urgent wake-up call to reverse that change as soon as possible.

World War Z - Max Brooks

Released in 2006, it was a bestseller instant in the United States taking over the lists of the best science fiction and apocalyptic titles, which has given rise to numerous similar books where the zombies they are the protagonists. But perhaps his film version with Brad Pitt leading the cast.