The Dystopian Era is back.

I keep seeing posts saying “bring back dystopia.”

But did it ever really go away? The truth is, dystopian fiction never stopped. Authors have been writing it continuously. So why does it feel like it disappeared?

Since the era of The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner, the reach of dystopian novels has been smaller. Nothing has broken through in the same cultural way—no massive trend, no blockbuster adaptation.

Why? Because, in many ways, we’ve lived through our own dystopian moment. A deadly virus. Isolation. Restrictions. Containment. Experiences we once only read about suddenly became real.

And now? The world feels tense again—conflict, uncertainty, leaders behaving unpredictably.

So readers are gravitating toward something different: hopeful, quieter dystopias. Stories that don’t scream rebellion, but whisper resilience. Worlds where change is possible, where resistance feels human-sized, where peace feels like something worth reaching for.

As a writer working inside this genre, I’m not interested in recreating the past. I’m interested in what dystopia means now—in the quiet moments, the fragile hopes, the small acts of resistance that feel real. If readers want dystopia back, I think they’re really asking for stories that help them make sense of the world. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to write.