Jennie Bristow - The Corona Generation: Coming of Age in a Crisis

There are many people to thank for supporting us in writing The Corona Generation, and making the process of pursuing this particular lockdown project less lonely and isolating than it otherwise would have been. First and foremost, our family: Tony, for encouraging us along the way and commenting on drafts and ideas, and Annia, for stoically ploughing through her schoolwork, providing the hugs, and putting up with the constant Covid conversations. Thank you both: we love you very much.

A big thank you goes to friends and acquaintances who talked to us about their experiences of the crisis, and provided their reflections. Some of these are quoted in the book. Many more helped us to interpret the moment, illustrating where we were not alone in our own feelings about lockdown and where others had a different take on things. We could not have written this without your insights.

Thanks to those who took the time to read and comment on drafts: in particular, Frank, Ellie, Kate, Rachel, Abigail, Anwesa, Charlotte, Kath, and Steve. Thanks also to the Academy of Ideas Parents Forum and the Generations Network for providing a space for us to discuss our ideas as we were developing them. We are hugely grateful to the team at Zero Books for their support for this project, from commissioning through production it has been wonderful to work with you.

During lockdown, a big absence in our lives was physical contact with our extended family and friends grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and lifelong friends who live too far away to be casually bumped into on the permitted daily walks. As we write these acknowledgements, it has been 4 months since we have seen any of them in real life, and that has been hard. Back in January, we celebrated the Bristow grandparents Golden Wedding Anniversary, with two large, intergenerational parties involving no social distancing whatsoever. That memory, of the time Before Corona, helped to carry us through the isolating months that followed.

We dedicate this book to the Class of 2020.

CULTURE, SOCIETY & POLITICS

The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and were invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization. Zer0 Books wants to work against this trend.

With critical theory as our jumping off point, we aim to publish books that make our readers uncomfortable. We want to move beyond received opinions.

Zer0 Books is on the left and wants to reinvent the left. We are sick of the injustice, the suffering and the stupidity that defines both our political and cultural world, and we aim to find a new foundation for a new struggle.

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