Michael Darren David Johnston, known as D.D. Johnston, (born 1979) is a Scottish political novelist. He currently lives in Cheltenham, England.[1] The left-wing British newspaper the Morning Star called him "one of this country’s most principled socialist novelists" and "also one of the most versatile and talented around."[2] He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and attended university there.
Johnston's first novel, Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs, from the anarchist publisher AK Press in Oakland, California, was selected as a Herald Book of the Year by Helen Fitzgerald.[3] It has been translated into Spanish as Paz, amor y cócteles molotov (Hoja de Lata, 2013).[1] Johnston's second, The Deconstruction of Professor Thrub, from Barbican Press, was written for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire.[4]
A third novel, The Secret Baby Room, was published in July 2015.[1] It is a psychological thriller set in Manchester. The author commented: "It’s taken me slightly longer to finish it than it took the Achaeans to fight the Trojan War. I hope it’s worth the wait."[5]
His novel "Disnaeland" was published in hardback by Barbican Press in 2022. The Financial Times summed it up pretty fully in a short space: 'DD Johnston's Disnaeland, a comedic dystopia set in a small Scottish town, is all profanity and colloquial dialect. When civilisation collapses, a community struggles to unite and rebuild. Bringing light to a dark world is no mean feat, but the characters in the novel do just that, and so does the author. From the cunning pun of its title onward, Disnaeland is a scabrous treat.'[6] The book gives us a Scottish utopia, in the spirit of what D.D.Johnston professes about his work on his publisher's website: 'the consistent theme is his love for ordinary people, and his faith in the extraordinary things we can achieve together.'[7]
Johnston is a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Gloucestershire.[8]