The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

Satirist George Saunders paints a disturbingly funny portrait of diplomacy—or a lack thereof—in The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. Inner Horner, a country of six citizens, is so tiny that it can hold only one citizen at a time—while one citizen occupies it, the rest wait in Outer Horner for their chance to come home. Inexplicably, their country shrinks, making it so that even the sole occupant must lie partially outside the territory, straddling the border of Inner and Outer Horner. Unfortunately the Outer Hornerites don't make things any easier, especially when a power-crazed guy named Phil begins riling up the Outer Horner masses with anti-Inner Horner sentiment, usurps the throne from their ageing and oblivious ruler, and eventually orders Inner Hornerites jailed and killed. With buoyant, slangy language Saunders recontextualizes a world in which arbitrary border disputes result in bloodshed, sovereignty is fluid, and the only thing more ruthless than dictators is the overthrow of dictators. What all this boils down to is that The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil shines new light on topics uncannily familiar to anyone who has watched more than thirty minutes of CNN in his or her lifetime; it's a brief and frightening reworking of the absurdities of contemporary world politics.