Young Adult Dystopia, Intertextuality, and Biblical Hope in Sandra Newman’s Julia

The article examines Sandra Newman’s Julia (2023) with particular attention to its engagement with the conventions of young adult (YA) dystopian fiction and its strategic use of intertextuality. While the novel is fundamentally a feminist retelling of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), the article argues that it also draws extensively on developments within YA dystopias over the past seven decades, especially in its portrayal of the intertwined coming-of-age trajectories of its two protagonists, Julia and Vicky. The analysis further highlights the novel’s allusions to canonical works such as Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and James Joyce’s Ulysses. These intertexts—each offering depictions of women shaped by male authors—complicate the novel’s feminist project: by invoking and reframing them, Newman both critiques the patriarchal literary canon and positions Julia within a broader lineage of narratives concerned with the constraints imposed on women. Finally, the article identifies a biblical layer that offers a distinctive solution to the central dystopian problem of hope, suggesting forgiveness and love as potential antidotes to the forms of damnation totalitarian systems attempt to impose on their subjects.