The Sunday Magazine for January 9, 2022
This week on The Sunday Magazine with Piya Chattopadhyay:
Is the United States on the verge of its next civil war?
The anniversary of the assault on the United States Capitol this week was a stark reminder of just how divided American society is today. But could the country actually be headed for a civil war? Canadian writer Stephen Marche urges us to think the unthinkable with his new book The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future. In it, Marche sketches several possible future scenarios of Americans taking up arms against each other, from right-wing militias facing off against the military, to the fallout from a climate disaster creating millions of climate refugees. He joins Chattopadhyay to talk about the book, and what the state of the nation next door could mean for Canadians.
From 'sonder' to 'dès vu': A dictionary of invented words we didn't know we needed
Have you ever had the flicker of realization that everyone around you – every random passerby – is living a life as vivid and complex as your own, with their own hopes and dreams and fears? And that you are just a background extra in the movie of their life? Well, there's a word for that sensation. "Sonder" is just one of hundreds of new words for universal experiences that writer John Koenig has created for his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. In the latest instalment of our language series Word Processing, he speaks with Chattopadhyay about coming up with words we didn't even know we needed, and the English language's limits when it comes to describing emotions.
Will Omicron finally spur wealthy nations to back vaccine equity?
As the Omicron COVID-19 variant overwhelms people and health care systems in Canada, Dr. Madhukar Pai is pleading with elected officials to look beyond borders and boosters to focus on true global health equity as the key to ending the pandemic. The Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology and Global Health at McGill University in Montreal joins Chattopadhyay to discuss what must be done to share vaccines, treatments and other tools that are vital in the fight against COVID-19.
Hanya Yanagihara interrogates the promise of the United States as paradise
After the feverish fanfare around her 2015 breakout novel A Little Life, writer Hanya Yanagihara is back with a new book, To Paradise. She speaks with Chattopadhyay about the themes she explores in her new work: freedom, utopia, borders, and disease over the span of three centuries, and through three different versions of the American experiment.
Plus: Listeners respond to our story on the power of fun, and share how they're finding delight and fun in trying times.
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