As researchers, we often encounter theories that explain the world in compelling ways. Occasionally, however, a literary text brings those theories to life more vividly than any academic argument. That was exactly my experience while reading Samit Basu's Chosen Spirits. As someone interested in contemporary Indian speculative fiction and digital cultures, I was fascinated by how the novel transforms abstract discussions about data, technology, and power into an unsettling portrait of everyday life.

My recently accepted article explores Chosen Spirits through the framework of surveillance capitalism—a concept developed by Shoshana Zuboff to describe an economic system where human experience is turned into data that can be collected, analysed, and monetised. While this theory has been widely discussed in relation to large technology companies, I wanted to ask a different question: What happens when these global digital systems are imagined through India's own social, political, and cultural realities?

Why this novel?

Science fiction is often associated with distant futures filled with impossible technologies. Chosen Spirits feels different. Its Delhi is recognisably our own, only a few years ahead. The smartphones are smarter, artificial intelligence has become more intimate, and digital platforms shape almost every aspect of daily life. Yet nothing feels entirely impossible.

That sense of familiarity is what drew me to the novel. Rather than presenting surveillance as something dramatic or sudden, Basu portrays it as an extension of technologies many of us already use every day. Social media, biometric devices, algorithmic recommendations, and artificial intelligence assistants quietly become part of ordinary routines.

As a literary researcher, I found this "near-now" setting particularly powerful because it encourages readers to reflect on the present instead of dismissing the story as a distant dystopia.

Looking beyond technology

One of the biggest surprises during my research was discovering that Chosen Spirits is not simply about technology. It is about power.

Many discussions of digital surveillance focus on algorithms, artificial intelligence, or privacy policies. Basu certainly includes these elements, but he also asks who benefits from these technologies and who is excluded.

The novel imagines a society where access to information becomes a new form of privilege. Those who control data also gain the ability to influence behaviour, shape public opinion, and determine opportunities available to others. Reading the novel through this lens made me realise that digital inequalities do not replace older social hierarchies—they often reinforce them.

This became one of the central arguments of my article: surveillance capitalism is never culturally neutral. When global technologies enter local societies, they interact with existing histories, institutions, and inequalities.

Literature as a way of understanding digital life

One question I often receive is why literary studies matter when discussing artificial intelligence or digital surveillance.

For me, literature offers something that statistics and policy reports cannot. It allows us to experience what technological systems feel like from the perspective of ordinary people.

Through Joey, the novel's protagonist, readers witness how constant digital monitoring gradually changes relationships, emotions, memory, and even personal identity. These experiences are difficult to measure with numbers, yet they are essential if we want to understand how technology shapes everyday life.

Working on this project reminded me that novels do not merely reflect society—they also help us imagine possible futures and encourage us to question the direction in which we are heading.

The challenge of translating theory

Perhaps the most rewarding—and challenging—part of writing this article was translating complex theoretical ideas into literary analysis.

Concepts such as surveillance capitalism, data colonialism, algorithmic governance, and instrumentarian power can appear intimidating at first. My goal was not simply to apply these theories to a novel but to demonstrate how fiction makes them more accessible and relatable.

Rather than treating theory and literature as separate conversations, I found that they enriched one another. Basu's fictional world gave concrete form to abstract ideas, while the theoretical frameworks helped explain why those fictional experiences resonate so strongly with contemporary digital life.

What I hope readers take away

Research often begins with curiosity, but it becomes meaningful when it starts conversations beyond our immediate academic communities.

I hope this work encourages readers from different disciplines—whether they study literature, media, sociology, political science, or technology—to think about how stories can illuminate the ethical and social questions surrounding our increasingly data-driven world.

More importantly, I hope it reminds us that discussions about digital technologies are never only about machines. They are ultimately about people, relationships, memory, justice, and the kind of future we want to build together.

For me, Chosen Spirits was not simply a dystopian novel. It became a lens through which I could better understand the complex relationship between technology, power, and society in contemporary India. That journey—from reading fiction to developing an academic argument—has been one of the most intellectually rewarding experiences of my research so far.

I'd love to hear how others have used literature to explore questions about emerging technologies, digital cultures, or social change. Sometimes a novel can reveal aspects of our present that even the most sophisticated technologies cannot see.