Estonian publisher releases Sinclair Lewis’s dystopian warning novel

Estonian publisher Koolibri has released a translation of Nobel laureate Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here, ERR reports. The book was translated by Olavi Teppan and published in Koolibri’s Hieronymus series.

The novel draws on the crises of its time and has become Lewis’s most-read work in the 21st century.

In the story, demagogue Buzz Windrip wins the 1936 US presidential election by promising a new era of prosperity. After gaining broad support through propaganda, he uses the fight against those he claims are undermining American values as a pretext to establish a fascist dictatorship.

The novel’s protagonist, Doremus Jessup, is a middle-aged journalist at a provincial newspaper. He and those close to him struggle to believe that the rule of law and democracy can be crushed in their country. As the authoritarian regime tightens its grip, they are forced to take their resistance further underground.