“Because Survival is Insufficient: Art in Times of Crisis — A Conversation with Emily St. John Mandel
Event Description: From Star Trek to Shakespeare, from corrupt Wall Street financiers to post-apocalyptic cult leaders, Emily St. John Mandel’s recent novels have it all. Station Eleven (2014) follows a group of traveling actors and musicians, survivors of a flu pandemic that has wiped out most of humanity. Moving back and forth in time, the novel reveals unexpected connections between the actors, a comic book artist, a Hollywood movie star, and a dangerous religious zealot known as The Prophet. The Glass Hotel (2020) also examines the surprising ways in which people are connected to each other by catastrophe, in this case the collapse of a global Ponzi scheme. Meditating on themes of art, wealth, and identity, Mandel explores how our pasts haunt us in sometimes literal ways.
Author Bio:
Emily St. John Mandel is the author of five novels, most recently The Glass Hotel. Her novel Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Toronto Book Award, and the Morning News Tournament of Books, and has been translated into 27 languages. A previous novel, The Singer’s Gun, was the 2014 winner of the Prix Mystere de la Critique in France. Her short fiction and essays have been anthologized in numerous collections, including Best American Mystery Stories 2013. She is a staff writer for The Millions. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
Watch the Discussion
A recording of this event is accessible at the following link for all current members of the Providence College community: https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/716c8639-505f-4065-a70e-c1f305e897f1?list=studio.
