Lyndsey Stonebridge presents a new way to think about the relationship between literature and human rights that challenges the idea that empathy inspires action.

A bold and accessible argument for the moral and political value of literature in rightless times. The obvious humanity of books would seem to make literature and human rights natural allies. But what is the real connection between literature and human rights? In this short polemical book, Lyndsey Stonebridge shows how the history of human rights owes much to the creative imagining of writers. Yet, she argues, it is not enough to claim that literature is the empathetic wing of the human rights movement. At a time when human rights are so blatantly under attack, the writers we need how are the political truthtellers, the bold callers out of easy sympathy and comfortable platitudes.

This slim but comprehensively researched, rigorously argued volume tackles human rights, literature, moralities, philosophy, aesthetics as well as our discourses about these in a complex, nuanced and yet completely accessible way. It makes for a challenging, thought-provoking, illuminating, and at times discomfiting read. This volume -to borrow from Stonebridge herself -is a must read for lawyers and philosophers, ideologues and academics, to thinkers, writers, teachers, readers, artists, activists, survivors and indeed each one of us who has ever lost themselves to a story that may be our own or entirely of another.