Bohemia in Despotic countries?

August 19, 2011 6:31 AM

I'm interested in books about 'underground' or 'bohemian' sub-cultures in despotic regimes. Artists, musicians, intellectuals, or even party kids or 'hippies'. I know there's a ton of these about the Soviet sphere, but I'm also interested in ones in Islamic countries or Asian countries or South America. Fiction or Non-Fiction is fine.
posted by empath to media & arts (9 answers total)

There's the book Heavy Metal in Baghdad about, um, heavy metal in Baghdad, based on the film of the same name. And in a similar vein there's the film No One Knows About Persion Cats, which is about the indie rock scene in Iran.
posted by permafrost at 6:44 AM on August 19, 2011

there's a novel abut a fictitious islamic punk scene called The Taqwacores. this inspired a real life scene to solidify, detailed in the documentary Taqwacore.


there's also a book of photography and movie based on the book.
posted by nadawi at 6:50 AM on August 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Does Reading Lolita in Tehran count?
posted by Herodios at 7:07 AM on August 19, 2011

Graphic fiction okay? Persepolis gets into the Iranian version of this sub-culture a bit.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 7:21 AM on August 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Roberto Bolaño's wrote quite a few books about the Bohemia of Latin America in the 20th Century, notably The Savage Detectives, By Night in Chile, Nazi Literature in the Americas and several short stories. Also, there's a non-fiction book I've been meaning to read in forever and have never gotten around to that is precisely about that, The Party and the Arty in China: The New Politics of Culture.
posted by Kattullus at 7:33 AM on August 19, 2011

How aboutThe Unbearable Lightness of Being? (book or film)
posted by mauvest at 8:04 AM on August 19, 2011

Have you seen Literature from the Axis of Evil?
posted by Hermes32 at 8:29 AM on August 19, 2011

Red Dust. By dissident Chinese artist Ma Jian. He and his friends had a bit of a bohemian vibe, if I recall correctly (it's been years since I read it).
posted by imalaowai at 9:51 AM on August 19, 2011

Aimée & Jaguar is a biography and subsequently a film about Jewish/lesbian/underground women in Berlin during the Third Reich.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 10:02 AM on August 19, 2011