Chapter 14: Dystopia, Disciplinarity, and Governmentality: A Foucauldian Analysis of the Novels of Isamu Fukui

In 2008, then 15-year old author Isamu Fukui published Truancy, a dystopian novel in which children are terrorized by an educational system that demands complete obedience and seeks total control. The novel was followed by the publication of a prequel, Truancy Origins (Fukui, 2009) while a third volume, Truancy City, is slated for publication in 2012. A self-described “unhappy” student during its writing, Fukui’s is a unique contribution to the rapidly expanding genre of young adult dystopian fiction (Miller, 2010). In the books, the author imagines a world in which contemporary educational policies are taken to their most horrible extremes. Both volumes chronicle the resistance of the “Truancy,” an armed, violent insurrection led by students intent on destroying the power of the “Educators” and their institutions.