Entertainment
Normal People’s Sebastian de Souza on ‘terrible irony’ of setting dystopian pandemic novel in 2021
Sebastian de Souza has opened up about the ‘terrible irony’ of writing a dystopian pandemic novel – which time jumps between 2021 and 2078.
The actor, who appeared in Skins and Normal People, has released his debut novel, KID: A History of the Future, today.
The story, which has been five years in the making, follows Josh ‘Kid’ Jones, a youngster living under the radar in 2078 London – a deserted city which is nothing like the bustling capital we’re used to.
Kid discovers an iPhone which allows him to communicate with the past via social media and, through this, he strikes up a friendship with teenager Isabel Parry, who is living in 2021. The two use Instagram to speak through time and space – unknowingly disrupting the fate of the worlds around them.
Lifting the lid on the book, which is also accompanied by a weekly ‘PodOpera’ – an immersive audiobook and musical – Sebastian explained the idea first came to him years ago as he walked through London, noticing that everyone was too busy staring at their phones.
‘This idea that you would walk down Oxford Street and walk through Soho, which is a place that, before coronavirus, I used to spend a lot of time in and adore. Walking through Central London, this incredibly vibrant, multicultural, extraordinary city… I started to realise that we were all living in our palms, on our telephones.’ he told Metro.co.uk.
‘None of us were really looking up. None of us were looking out, none of us were really communicating in the real world, we were doing it all on our devices. I started to imagine what this kind of a city, this remarkably diverse, brilliantly busy, bubbly place would look like if it actually suddenly went quiet.
‘Which is something that is unimaginable. The reality that presented here in KID: A History Of The Future is probably one that most people would say, “Oh, that’s impossible, that would never happen.” What I say is that I think I’ve got it wrong, and it’s going to happen about 50 years sooner than I’ve said it would.
‘What worries me even more is the idea that, because we’re all stuck on our telephones and living in our palms, we’re very distracted from all of the really, really pressing and very worrying environmental issues that are going to lead to us not really being able to walk around much outside in the future.’
In 2021, the idea of a quiet, empty capital and being stuck inside is something we’re all too familiar with…
Sebastian revealed he was shocked by the parallels of the book, which focused on a dystopian city where people bonded through social media, and the current situation of the pandemic.
‘It was completely bizarre. The reality of the book, the bleak reality that’s presented, did feel super far away, regardless of the fact that it seemed like something that was possible when I started writing,’ he confessed.
‘The horrific thing, and the terrible irony of it is, last year as John Garth and I were editing the final draft of the book and getting it ready to be published, this pandemic struck.
‘It would be wrong not to admit or nod to the fact that it massively shaped the way that we were reshaping our story.
‘The pandemic… it’s terrible to say, but it was reassuring. What I’m trying to very humbly do is write what I’d like to call activist fiction, to make people start to think about where we’re going. What it did was like, “Oh, yeah, you know what? That is where we’re going if we carry on. We’re kind of there already”.
‘It was very bizarre and very depressing. But also annoyingly, like, “Yeah, you’re not entirely wrong”.
‘I hate to bang on about coronavirus, but it does feel incredibly fitting now to be talking about a story like this when there’s a respiratory virus bandying its way around the globe.’
KID: A History of the Future is out on shelves today, and Sebastian is hoping it spurs people into action, to make sure the idea he’s envisioned for 2078 doesn’t actually happen.
On top of the book, there’s an ‘online universe’ where readers can put some plans into action and have their own say on their futures.
‘What I hope is that [readers] begin to acknowledge this idea that we actually… Quite apart from it being this very bleak, hopeless future, we actually can change our futures in our present, by writing things,’ he added.
‘By thinking really hard about what we want, rather than, “This is how it’s gonna look? Oh, woe is me, everything’s super bleak”. How do we want things to look? Let’s shape them with our imaginations. That’s the idea.
‘We have this whole online universe that’s going to accompany the book that people will eventually be able to contribute their own stories to, there’ll be template letters to their headmistresses and headmasters to ask for small changes to be made at school that might help their carbon footprint.
‘Just starting on a really local and attainable level. Hopefully we’ll start to see a bit more change at a bigger level.
Bring it on.
Sebastian de Souza’s debut book KID: A History of the Future is available now, with more information available at www.offlineruniverse.com.
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