It Can't Happen Here

'An eerily prescient foreshadowing of current affairs' Guardian 'Not only Lewis's most important book but one of the most important books ever produced in the United States' New Yorker A vain, outlandish, anti-immigrant, fearmongering demagogue runs for President of the United States - and wins. Sinclair Lewis's chilling 1935 bestseller is the story of Buzz Windrip, 'Professional Common Man', who promises poor, angry voters that he will make America proud and prosperous once more, but takes the country down a far darker path. As the new regime slides into authoritarianism, newspaper editor Doremus Jessup can't believe it will last - but is he right? This cautionary tale of liberal complacency in the face of populist tyranny shows it really can happen here.

Sinclair Lewis was born in 1885 in Minnesota. He attended Yale University and subsequently worked as a reporter and editor. In 1920, he had a major breakthrough with Main Street (1920), which was followed by Babbitt (1922) and many other successful novels. He won the Nobel Prize in 1930 and in 1935 wrote the bestselling It Can't Happen Here, a cautionary tale about the rise of a fascist president in America. He died in Rome in 1951.