People are upset that I said that literature should not be political. Let me be clear. Literature can make a political statement, but there is so much great literature out there that doesn’t. The idea I take issue with is that literature is, by nature, inherently political. This myopic belief is typically pushed by ideologues who wish to superimpose their existing biases on literature that has no relationship to queerness, post-colonialism, etc. Literature by definition creatively uses language to comment on an aspect of the human condition—political identity is just one small slice of what makes us human. While literature certainly can have political ends, let’s stop imposing our own contemporary political biases on literary works that don’t have any relationship to your grievances.