Slavoj Žižek has built a career out of asking uncomfortable questions. The Slovenian philosopher, cultural critic, and public intellectual is known for his provocative readings of ideology, politics, popular culture, psychoanalysis and everyday life. Drawing heavily on the ideas of Hegel, Marx and Jacques Lacan, Žižek has become one of the most recognizable—and controversial—philosophers of our time.
His best-known books, including The Sublime Object of Ideology, Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce and Less Than Nothing, circle the questions that make dystopian fiction so compelling: what happens to our desires, our morals and our sense of reality when the world we thought was stable falls apart?
In the novels Žižek recommends here, civilization collapses in different ways: the planet becomes hostile, humanity encounters an alien intelligence, people are reduced to biological resources, survivors confront radical isolation, and communities attempt to rebuild after catastrophe.
From J.G. Ballard’s flooded London to Emily St. John Mandel’s post-pandemic world, these are stories about the strange psychological and ethical queries that follow disaster. They ask whether humanity can survive without changing what it means to be human—and whether, in the aftermath of catastrophe, survival alone is enough.
As Žižek puts it, “we need more than just survival to survive.”
Explore the five books Žižek believes are worth reading before the world ends below, and complement with Anthony Burgess’ favorite works of dystopian fiction and Brian Eno’s reading list for rebuilding civilization.
Slavoj Žižek’s Reading List
The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
“This work depicts a future Earth made largely uninhabitable by solar radiation. In a flooded London, scientists take advantage of societal collapse to fulfil unconscious urges. The idea that a mega-catastrophe could create an opportunity to experience jouissance – surrendering oneself to a bliss that obliterates the limits of our subjectivity – profoundly influenced me.” -SZ
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (also rec’d by Michaela Coel)
“Cixin’s masterpiece confronts Earth with Trisolaris, a planet whose unpredictable suns cause severe temperature shifts. As a critical ecologist, I see it as Earth in the near future; are we facing something for which the only appropriate term is ‘the end of nature’?” -SZ
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
“Arguably the most depressing novel I’ve ever read, it explores a society where human clones are created to supply organs for transplant, a practice that requires a major shift in public morals. Is this not our situation today? We cope with new threats by reshaping our ethical principles.” -SZ
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
“Perhaps even darker than Ishiguro’s novel, this work is about a girl locked in a bunker with 39 women. When the male guards flee, they emerge into a barren plain. The girl, the last to survive, writes about her life. Existentially, I feel like the girl: even in a crowd, I am totally alone, and my words will probably never reach their addressee. I think truly great thinkers also accept there will be no one to read them properly.” -SZ
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (also rec’d by Carrie Brownstein)
“An apocalyptic novel with a sort of happy ending. After an epidemic devastates humanity, one group, the Travelling Symphony, connects scattered communities by performing Shakespeare. I agree that, in our catastrophic predicament, we need more than just survival to survive.” -SZ
(via The Week; photo by Jeff Gilbert)
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