In a culture where poetry has long been the celebrated medium, there’s a new wave of dystopian and surrealist fiction from Middle Eastern writers, reports Alexandra Alter of The New York Times.

These books are coming out of the chaotic aftermath of the Arab Spring, and while “some writers are using science fiction and fantasy tropes to describe grim political realities,” Alter writes, “others are writing about controversial subjects like sexuality and atheism, or exhuming painful historical episodes that were previously off limits.”

These books include such novels as Basma Abdel Aziz’s The Queue, Saleem Haddad’s Guapa, Mohammed Rabie’s Otared, Nael Eltoukhy’s Women of Karantina, and Yasmine El Rashidi’s Chronicle of a Last Summer.

While dystopian themes aren’t entirely new, these authors have found freedom in writing futuristic work to dive into a “darker and a bit deeper” exploration of oppression, Saleem Haddad said.

Likewise, for Abdel Aziz, a neuropsychiatrist who works part-time in a center in Cairo counseling victims of torture and violence, the genre has given her “a very wide space to say what I wanted to say about totalitarian authority.”

The genre itself may give authors some leeway to explore politically charged themes in a region where it has risks; as an example, customs officers last year seized four hundred copies of Walls of Freedom, a book about Egyptian political street art, charging that the book was “instigating revolt.”

Abdel Aziz says it’s futile to worry about the crackdown on creative expression. “I’m not afraid anymore,” she said. “I will not stop writing.”

Related reading: The New York Times published its list of five writers from the Middle East and North Africa to watch.