Katharine Burdekin’s Swastika Night was first published in 1937 and, like Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross, discussed in Charlotte Higgins’s article, was ahead of the curve in predicting the effects of 20th-century European fascism (A prophetic 1933 novel has found a surprising second life – it holds lessons for us all, 18 October). The difference is that Burdekin (originally published under the pseudonym Murray Constantine) imagined a future world in which the Nazis have been in power for 700 years.
What is most striking about Burdekin’s novel is the way in which she locates the psychopathology of fascism in a form of toxic masculinity becoming increasingly familiar to contemporary readers. She anticipates, equally, the retreat of women to traditional gender roles in a vain attempt to assuage masculine pride. But where Burdekin offers hope is in her analysis of fascism as, ultimately, self-defeating.
