Pandemic by Dieter Gartelmann

A contemporary novelization of the COVID-19 saga, Dieter Gartelmann’s Pandemic is an audacious and wholly original novel that is part apocalyptic thriller, and part literary investigation. Following the lives of six people from August 2020 into the near future, the reader experiences the pandemic through myriad lenses – each character a representative point of view of the pandemic, referenced with news articles and opinion pieces. An ambitious attempt at understanding the pandemic’s impact, the book acts like a diary of humanity in the current moment. The result is alternately eye-opening and frustrating, as the reader is put in the position of omniscient judge of our successes and failures when faced with a common challenge.