The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Dystopias are characterized as a society that is a counter-utopia, a repressed, controlled, restricted system with multiple social controls put into place via government, military, or powerful authority figures. Issues of surveillance and invasive technologies are often key, as is a constant emphasis that this is not a place where you'd want to live. This article discusses this definition in relation to young adult fiction.