In a world where 1984-esque totalitarian tyranny seems more the stuff of lived reality than dystopian fiction, reading Payal Kapadia’s Woebegone’s Warehouse of Words strikes an eerily resonant chord. The story unfolds in a barren, claustrophobic society controlled by a paternalistic organization called Word Bloc. It’s a setting that readers would find uncannily familiar, except for the fact that people have to purchase words before they can use them. And words come neither cheap, nor unfreighted with the possibilities of danger.
March 2025, volume 49, No 3