12 Best Political Fiction Authors on Your Must-Read List

Interested in political fiction? If so, these best political fiction authors are some you simply must read!

Political fiction authors have a unique perspective on the fiction novel genre. While their primary goal is to write engaging fiction, they use their novels to showcase problems within politics and society as a whole or to show the dangers of continuing down a particular political or ideological path. 

Finding the right author is critical if you are interested in reading great fiction while also enjoying some political commentary.

Here are 12 authors that explore the political fiction genre well. Add these to your reading list or scrounge Amazon to find their books, and you will find yourself learning about politics while enjoying engaging political commentary at the same time.

Best Political Fiction Authors

Best Political Fiction Authors

1. George Orwell

George Orwell is, perhaps, one of the most famous political authors of the 20th century. His book 1984, published in 1949, was a reverse utopia that discussed the idea of Big Brother, an overarching government that saw everything. By introducing this term to the political vernacular, Orwell made his way into literary history.

Another political novel, Animal Farm, was a satirical look at socialism and totalitarianism, which brought the fictional farm to ruin. Orwell developed his hatred of these types of governments when living in Spain, where he found himself caught up in the conflict between Stalinists and Trotskyists, nearly losing his life as a result. 

Throughout his life, he wrote propaganda for the BBC and edited for the Tribune in England, but his rise to fame and fortune occurred after the publication of Animal Farm in 1945. Animal Farm has over 11 million copies in print today. 

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Animal Farm
  • Orwell, George (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 118 Pages - 11/08/2021 (Publication Date) - Intra S.r.l.s. (Publisher)

2. Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley was born in 1894 in the United Kingdom and died in 1963 in California. Born to a prominent family and educated at Oxford, Huxley was a well-read person who believed himself to be a pacifist, a recurring theme in his political novels, essays, and short stories.

In the political scene, Huxley is most famous for writing Brave New World and Island, both of which explored the ideas of dystopia and utopia. Brave New World explores a dystopian society wherein people rely on technology and drugs so heavily they can no longer think for themselves. Book reviewers at the time believed Huxley was writing to counter the many utopian novels that indicated Socialism would eventually usher in a utopian society. 

Throughout his body of works, Huxley shows that he was one of the leading intellectuals of his age. As a result, he was able to see the potential damage caused by unencumbered socialism and technological advancement. Do you want to learn more about politics? Check out our round-up of the best political authors. Or you can also search for our best book guides using our search bar.

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Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited
  • Aldous Huxley (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 340 Pages - 07/05/2005 (Publication Date) - Harper Perennial Modern Classics (Publisher)

3. Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood’s name became a household name when The Handmaid’s Tale became a televised drama. In her signature work, the first book in a trilogy, she explores a dystopian world where infertility causes the few fertile women to become sexual slaves, or “handmaidens,” whose only role in society is to bear children for the childless elite. The story tells of this world from the point of view of one handmaid, Offred, and shows just how dangerous society can be if women have no rights.

Atwood wrote her book as a political novel that showcased what would happen if the religious right of the 1980s took over control. Critics herald her book as a champion for women’s rights.

Atwood is a Canadian author with many awards to her name. In addition to writing, she spent many of her early years working as a lecturer, assistant professor, and writer-in-residence at several universities in Canada and the United States. 

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The Handmaid's Tale
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  • Atwood, Margaret (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 311 Pages - 03/16/1998 (Publication Date) - Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Publisher)

4. Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren is a Kentucky-born author who wrote All the King’s Men, a Pulitzer-Prize winning political novel, as well as other novels, poems, and short stories. He lived much of his life in Connecticut and Vermont before dying in 1989 from cancer. 

Warren has ten novels to his name alongside plays, essays, children’s books, textbooks, and poetry collections. All the King’s Men is his most famous, named one of the 100 best novels since 1923 by Time Magazine. It tells the story of the dramatic rise to power of Willie Stark, a political character who can give people what they want in order to rise to power.

As the narrator, Jack Burden watches Stark’s rise to power, he realizes the depth of political corruption possible when someone wants power over everything. Eventually, that political corruption led to the downfall of Stark, and all the king’s men could not put his political career back together again.

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All the King's Men (Warren) - Acting Edition
  • Used Book in Good Condition
  • Robert Penn Warren (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 72 Pages - 10/01/1961 (Publication Date) - Dramatists Play Service, Inc. (Publisher)

5. Vince Flynn

Best-selling author Vince Flynn is a modern political writer who tells the Mitch Rapp Saga. These political thrillers are New York Times bestsellers, and they tell the tale of a grief-ridden young man who partners with the CIA to take revenge on the terrorists who stole his girlfriend from him.

An American author, Flynn lived from 1966 to 2013. His life tragically ended due to prostate cancer at the age of 47. Before launching his writing career, Flynn tried to enter the Marines but was disqualified due to a history of seizures in childhood. 

Flynn struggled with dyslexia as a child, which makes his role as an author an interesting choice in profession. He self-published his first book, Term Limits, before landing a publication deal after publishers saw how popular the book became. 

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Term Limits
  • Flynn, Vince (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 640 Pages - 12/29/2009 (Publication Date) - Pocket Star (Publisher)

6. William Golding

William Golding
William Golding

Born in 1911 in Cornwall, England, William Golding is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning author who wrote Lord of the Flies, among other works. His career in the Royal Navy showed him a unique perspective of the horrors of war, and he also spent time teaching in addition to writing. Queen Elizabeth knighted him in 1988. 

Lord of the Flies tells what happens when a plane crash leaves some boys stranded on an island without adult supervision. As they try to set up society on the island, divisions occur, and eventually, a dictatorship develops. The allegory of the book shows just how quickly society can disintegrate when left to its own devices. 

Today, Lord of the Flies has 35 language translations, and many schools use it as required reading. Its English translation has more than 25 million copies sold. 90

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Lord of the Flies
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  • William Golding (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 224 Pages - 12/16/2003 (Publication Date) - Penguin Books (Publisher)

7. Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is most famous for his political novel Fahrenheit 451, which tells of a society where books get burned, and people are asked to watch television instead. One fireman, the name given to the people supposed to burn the books, starts to question why. The book takes on the theme of censorship and its dangers, and it has over 5 million copies in print. 

Though Fahrenheit 451 is his most famous, Bradbury also published 400 short stories and close to 50 books. The Martian Chronicles is another popular title that looks at what might happen when humans colonize Mars. 

Bradbury lived much of his life in Los Angeles, where the city’s multicultural nature influenced his political fiction and science fiction works. He died in 2012 at the age of 91. 

Fahrenheit 451
  • Fahrenheit 451;9781451673319;1451673310
  • Ray Bradbury (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 249 Pages - Simon & Schuster (Publisher)

8. Richard Condon

Richard Condon wrote political fiction often based on the politics of the Richard Nixon era. The Manchurian Candidate is one of his most popular and famous works, eventually becoming two different movies. 

Born in New York City, Condon eventually enlisted with the Marines until starting his writing career in the 1950s. To help him launch his literary career, his boss secretly stole money from his salary each week, tucking it away until he was able to buy him an oceanfront house, then sent the writer away to write his novel. 

Condon’s works are known for their satire, outrage at political corruption, and many conspiracies that weave their way throughout. In addition, cold War themes weave their way throughout his works. 

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The Manchurian Candidate
  • Condon, Richard (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 368 Pages - 08/15/2013 (Publication Date) - Orion (Publisher)

9. Harper Lee

Harper Lee
Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird remains one of the most classic works of political satire in modern English literature. Harper Lee perfectly shows the problems of racism in the South as she explores the world of Scout Finch, a precocious six-year-old watching tragic events unfold around her. At its heart, this book explores the moral nature of people, but it also explores the politics of living in a racist society.

Harper Lee grew up in the South, born in Monroeville, Alabama. Like her character Scout, she was a tomboy, and even as an adult, she didn’t have much interest in fashion, dating, and makeup. Instead, she focused her life on writing and studying.

Lee only wrote two books, To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman. She also collaborated with Truman Capote to write In Cold Blood. Even though her literary career had only a few titles, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her work, and To Kill a Mockingbird sells over a million copies each year. 

To Kill a Mockingbird Publisher, 50th Anniversary Edition
  • Hardcover Book
  • Harper Lee (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 01/01/2010 (Publication Date)

10. Allen Drury

American novelist Allen Drury lived from 1918 to 1998. He worked as a reporter in the Senate during World War II, and that role gave him unique insight into the country’s political workings. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for his first novel, Advise and Consent, which he based on his work and observations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.

Drury was often called the “Father of the D.C. Drama.” In many ways, he launched the American political novel genre. Though many of his works seem to be modeled on actual American political events, he claims they are entirely fictional, and those similarities are mere coincidences.

Drury completed his 20th novel just two weeks before he died. All of his novels featured political themes and gave an insider’s look at what happens in American politics.

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Advise and Consent
  • Drury, Allen (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 706 Pages - 07/04/2017 (Publication Date) - Wordfire Press (Publisher)

11. Ayn Rand

Alice O’Connor, known by her pen name Ayn Rand, was a Russian-born American writer with over 37 million books sold. Her works show that humankind is heroic, and she features people from many walks of life doing amazing things. Rand lived from 1905 to 1982. 

Two of Rand’s most famous works were The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She considered Atlas Shrugged to be her masterwork, and it took her 12 years to complete. In it, she makes a political commentary about the benefits of business and reason, which contrasts with many political writers of her day. 

Because she embraced business so strongly, Rand also shunned Communism in her works. Instead, she exalted the people in her books and packed the works full of drama and intrigue, making them enjoyable to read.

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Atlas Shrugged (Centennial Ed.)
  • fine, new copy of the centennial edition, 2005, later printing of Atlas Shrugged
  • Hardcover Book
  • Rand, Ayn (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 1168 Pages - 04/21/2005 (Publication Date) - Dutton (Publisher)

12. Joe Klein

In 1996, Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics hit the booksellers with the author listed as “Anonymous.” This book explored Bill Clinton’s primary election in 1992. This was a New York Times bestselling novel, and in July of 1996, journalist Joe Klein admitted that he was the author. 

Primary Colors is funny and dramatic, but it also points out some of the treacheries that occur behind the scenes during a political election. It provides an insider’s look at what happens during political campaigns.

Primary Colors is so effective because it takes on political issues and gives the characters real human qualities and motivations. Though Clinton is not explicitly named, the references to the political scene of the day are clear. Still, politics aside, it is simply a good story. 

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Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics
  • Hardcover Book
  • Anonymous, (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 366 Pages - 01/16/1996 (Publication Date) - Random House (Publisher)

Author

  • Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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