Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling
What is it like to write during what could be the last decades of human civilization?
In this week’s episode, Dr. Ed Simon talks about his latest book Writing During the Apocalypse Reflections on the Great Unraveling (Bloomsbury).
Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren't ill placed. And yet, art and literature persist. In his new book, Ed grapples with the notion that writers and their work ought to distract readers from our currently dire situation.
Examining creativity as it has manifested in similarly dire circumstances in human history – in a broad range of authors and texts, such as the Bible, Boccaccio's Decameron, Voltaire, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, and Stephen King's The Stand – Writing During the Apocalypse eschews the easy defeatism of nihilism. Instead, it offers a hopeful perspective on the various ways that literary expression can endow a meaningless world with meaning and generate a spark in the darkness.
With the infamous four horsemen as its guide, Writing During the Apocalypse honors the literary life even during the end of the world.
Ed argues that to craft imaginative spaces through the magic of words isn't superfluous. Instead it exists at the core of human experience – as it always has and always will.