Strangers in a Strange Homeland

In the autumn of 2025, with Donald Trump's second first year in office drawing to a close and the country seemingly on the brink of civil war, American expatriate award-winning author C. J. Hopkins returns to his homeland after twenty years abroad to embark on a quixotic road trip throughout the USA, searching for what remains of the American spirit. Hopkins, accompanied by photographer Hugo Fernandez, drives headlong into the maelstrom of forces tearing at the fabric of society, encountering Americans from all walks of life and of all political persuasions. COVID dissidents, conspiracy theorists, democratic socialists, venture capitalists, sovereign citizens, Christian fundamentalists, “woke” totalitarians, liberals, conservatives, transgender Trump supporters, and just everyday garden variety citizens trying to make sense of the country's shifting—and widening—political landscape. Equal parts travelogue, memoir, and cultural study, Strangers in a Strange Homeland is a wild odyssey of the American expanse through an outsider's lens.

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning playwright and political satirist. His early plays and experimental stage-texts were produced during the 1990s in New York City. Since 2001, his plays have been produced and have toured internationally, playing theatres and festivals including Riverside Studios (London), 59E59 Theaters (New York), Belvoir St. Theatre (Sydney), Traverse Theatre (Edinburgh), the Du Maurier World Stage Festival (Toronto), Needtheater (Los Angeles), 7 Stages (Atlanta), English Theater Berlin, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, Brighton Festival, and Noorderzon Festival (the Netherlands). His playwriting awards include the 2002 Best of the Scotsman Fringe Firsts (Horse Country), the 2004 Best of the Adelaide Fringe (Horse Country), and a 2005 Scotsman Fringe First (screwmachine/eyecandy). His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing/Methuen Drama (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. (US). His political satire and commentary has appeared on NPR Berlin, in CounterPunch, ColdType, and other journals, and has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German.