“Fiction can fly under the radar of those who would manipulate the past”

But why fictionalise this history? Surely what we need in the age of “post-truth” is a bit of good old-fashioned truth? For one, fiction can fly under the radar of those who would manipulate the past (for non-fictional ends); it comes out with its hands up, confessing its falsity.

More importantly, fiction sidesteps identity politics – that monstrous but inevitable byproduct of “free” news. When the news is “free” what’s really on sale is us, the audience (to the advertisers), and for that sale to work, our demographic identity has to be tied, predictably, to all our behaviour; not just our purchasing habits but our affiliations and sympathies. Fiction is one of the few things that allows us to completely uncouple our sympathies from our sense of personal identity. We can sympathise with those we don’t identify with; we can connect with the unfamiliar, we can take the other’s side.

Ra Page, on Protest: Stories of Resistance