Val McDermid Says the World's Leaders Should Read More Fiction - For Our Sake

 

I have long been of the opinion that readers of novels and other fiction are more empathetic and understanding than people who read only a steady diet of nonfiction, or don't bother to read anything at all other than their local sports page. And I think that's especially true for readers who started reading fiction from a young age.

Well, as this piece from The Guardian points out, author Val McDermid agrees - and takes it a big step or two further:

The most impressive political leaders during the coronavirus crisis have one thing in common, one of Britain’s most popular novelists believes: they all read fiction.

By contrast, the leader of one of the most “shambolic” responses is reading endless biographies of men who have gone before him, the “queen of crime”, Val McDermid, lamented at the Edinburgh international book festival.

[...]

Governments that seem to have done best “are led by people who read fiction” she said, naming Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, Katrín Jakobsdóttir in Iceland and Sanna Marin in Finland among them.

“They are all people who read fiction. What fiction gives you is the gift of imagination and the gift of empathy. You see a life outside your own bubble. If you’re sitting there reading your endless biographies of Churchill or Attlee or whatever, you’re not looking at the world outside your window. You’re not understanding the lives of ordinary people who populate the country you’re supposed to be governing.

“My advice to any politician is: go and read a novel and you’ll understand the world better and you can imagine a changed world better.”

I don't pay all that much attention to an author's political views - unless they promote them in their fiction - because I don't want to let my personal feelings interfere with my enjoyment of their work. (But in total honestly, there are two or three authors I cannot read with any pleasure anymore because they make their politics so simplistically obvious in their work.) I don't always agree with the outspoken McDermid's personal views, and I much appreciate her for not saturating her novels with them. I love her work...and I think here she has paid a great compliment to fiction readers around the world. Do you agree with Val?

Do, please, click on the link to The Guardian for the rest of the story.