Nine titles about the world-changing power of protest

McKayla Coyle, an intern at Electric Literature, tagged nine books about the world-changing power of protest, including:

1989 Tiananmen Square Protests: Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

This sprawling novel covers generations of Chinese politics and upheaval through the lens of two young women, Marie and Ai-ming, as they try to unravel the mystery of why Marie’s father, Kai, killed himself. The women bond over a series of notebooks written by Ai-ming’s father, Sparrow, that detail Kai and Sparrow’s lives as friends and burgeoning musicians during China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. As the Chinese government cracks down on artists and intellectuals, fear and political loyalties begin to tear the musicians apart.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue