Anne Fortier on the Case for Libertarian Novels

How can a freedom-loving writer make the greatest impact for liberty in the world today? That's the question posed by novelist and libertarian Anne Fortier. For her, the chosen path has always been through fiction. Even as she pursued a doctorate in the history of ideas in her native Denmark, she realized she had neither the encyclopedic training nor the passion for cool logic—not to mention the nerve—to follow in the footsteps of classical liberal philosophers and economists such as Robert Nozick, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman.

So, for Fortier, the desire to explore themes of freedom and human action led inescapably to the novel. And there is no question that the novel has the potential to attract and influence scores of readers who are not necessarily predisposed to agreeing with the underlying philosophy.