In her political thriller Vox, author Christina Dalcher used her work in linguistics to inform the imagined society in which a political regime silenced women with word counters. And not just grown women, baby girls as young as three months were being fitted with these bracelet word counters on their small wrists.
Each female was allotted 100 words a day. The counters reset at midnight. And each infraction was met with negative reinforcement… an electrical charge.
And if you think a daily allotment of 100 words is a lot, here’s some perspective. I’ve just used 96.
I recently spoke with Dalcher about her work and her book. Here's our conversation:
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Vox by Christina Dalcher was published by Berkley.
Marginalia was produced at KMUW Wichita.
Engineers: Mark Statzer and Torin Andersen
Editors: Lu Anne Stephens and Haley Crowson
Producer: Beth Golay
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