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The Current Transcript for November 14, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

You can't. There's no planning anymore. It's just we live just from one day to another, and that's it.

NORA YOUNG: The people of Iceland are used to volcanic eruptions, but there are concerns that one may be coming. That's on a whole different level. The town of Grindavik and the entire southern part of the island were shaken by nearly 900 tremors yesterday. We'll talk to one photographer who's there about what worries the people around him, but also the awesomeness he sees in the natural spectacle. That's coming up in 45 minutes. And also from a large Chinese bank to Toronto's library system, ransomware attacks seem to be everywhere these days. In 30 minutes, one cyber security expert on why the perpetrators are getting more sophisticated. And then,

SOUNDCLIP

A part of what we've been dealing with for the last generation or two generations is how do we make a life here now? And in some cases, people are saying, well, we can.

NY: Michael Crumb has built a whole new Finland world in his novels, is fiction, looks back into history, but he's also thinking about the future of his island home and how to keep the culture going. Mark Galloway's conversation with him is coming up in an hour. But we begin in Gaza and a dire situation in hospitals. I'm Nora Young, sitting in for Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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The dire situation in Gaza’s hospitals

Guests: Ghassan Abu Sitta, Richard Brennan, Briar Stewart

SOUNDCLIP

I have had some reports of many, many intensive care patients dying, many premature babies in incubators dying or being taken out because the incubators are no longer functioning. This is the sort of stuff that happened in medieval times, not having incubators for premature babies. I'm a children's doctor who looks after very sick children. I can't imagine how these babies are going to survive.

NY: Dr. Omar Abdel-Mannan is the founder of Gaza Medic Voices, a social media platform that publishes firsthand accounts from health care workers in Gaza. He's talking about the situation at Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa. Israeli troops are surrounding the hospital in Gaza City. The power is out and thousands have fled the hospital grounds. The World Health Organisation calls the hospital a, quote, "cemetery". All this comes while Gaza's wider health care system is collapsing. Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta is a British Palestinian surgeon. He travelled to Gaza just over a month ago to help at Al-Shifa hospital. He recently moved to Al Ahli Baptist Hospital. That's where we reached him yesterday. And just a note, it's hard to reach people inside Gaza, and the phone line wasn't great. Here's our conversation.

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: Hi.

NY: Where are we reaching you?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: So I'm now at the Army hospital since Shifa Hospital collapsed. Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital has become the only functioning hospital in the Gaza Strip. Over the last four days, we've received over 500 of the wounded, and many of the wounded have been in Shifa Hospital that managed to get out on the last day before it was completely surrounded. It's a small hospital that had been hit early on in the war and it only has two functioning operating rooms.

NY: So it's very small. Can you tell me tell me a bit more about what it looks like there.

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: When you had to turn the forecourt into a field hospital just to be able to see and treat the wounded on own, only able to take the most critically wounded to the operating room because we don't have the capacity of running short on foot long.

NY: Doctor, we spoke with you a few weeks ago when you had just arrived in Gaza. How has the situation worsened?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: The health system is completely collapsed and in the Gaza Strip and this is what we've been warning about from the very beginning, the whole narrative, the targeting, the health system, the health sector that was aimed at creating and worsening a humanitarian catastrophe.

NY: So you're at the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital. What kind of decisions are you left having to make when it comes to the patients that you treat?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: We don't have a neurosurgeon. We don't. And only today we got an X-ray technician. And so the decisions are about who to take to the operating room, you know, and whom we can we can not treat.

NY: Are you able to operate at all?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: We have to operate you completely. And y ou've been very scarce for that, for a lifesaving procedure. But, you know, people with isolated limb injuries, unfortunately, and stop pretending.

NY: Can you tell me a little bit about how you're coping with supplies a little bit more?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: Suppliles are really low, I mean, I mean, this is the problem. I didn't have any ketamine, or morphine to give patients.

NY: What do you say to the people you're treating to calm them?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: Just tell them that we have no, that there's really no other option. There are no other hospitals you can send them to. And I think they realise that this is nothing like what we are unable to give them the kind of care that they need and deserve.

NY: So are all of the patients who are in Al-Shifa out of there now, or do you know what the situation is in that regard.

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: There are patients who are still inside with the doctors. They are all in the corridors because they [unintelligible] there are snipers firing into the into the windows at anything that moves. So, no. There's no operating and there's no treatment. They're just hiding there.

NY: Right. And what about where you are? Can staff at the hospital leave without risk risking being injured or killed?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: And so from here, explosions and all that going around us but we haven't been targeted yet.

NY: And where are you sleeping?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: In the operating room. On the floor. You have mattresses in one of the rooms and we sleep there.

NY: What are you most scared of right now?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: It's just this sense of undending bottomless pit that just that misery that just keeps getting worse oand worse every day and that no end in sight. There's no there's no talk of a cease fire. There's no talk of long [unintelligible. As if the world turned its back on Gaza.

NY: What are you telling your family back in the UK?

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: I tell them that I'm ok, I'm in the safest possible place that I could be. The call in the sense of possibilities. But I know how to do it and that I will not be able to leave my patients behind. [unintelligible] And I can't evacuate until there's a humanitarian corridor or ther's a cease fire.

NY: Thank you for speaking with us.

DR. GHASSAN ABU SITA: Thank you.

NY: Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta is a British Palestinian surgeon. We reached him in Gaza yesterday for a deeper look at what this war has done to medical support and services in Gaza. I'm joined by Richard Brennan. He's the regional emergency director of the World Health Organisation for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, and he is in Cairo. Hello.

RICHARD BRENNAN: Hi.

NY: So how many of Gaza's hospitals are functioning right now?

RICHARD BRENNAN: Well, the numbers seem to decline every day. The latest information that I have is 22 of the 35 hospitals are non-functioning. And of those that are functioning, they're doing so at a desperately reduced capacity right now. So it really is a catastrophic situation because the needs, the health needs amongst the population are soaring, and our ability to meet those needs is plummeting at the same time.

NY: And what kind of toll is this war taking on the medical personnel inside of Gaza?

RICHARD BRENNAN: Well, as you can imagine, it's it's been exhausting. It's been heartbreaking. So enormous toll of war related injuries, which are very, very difficult conditions to manage. I mean, I'm I'm an emergency physician. I've worked in war zones. I can tell you there's very few circumstances that are as difficult to deal with as a large number of patients coming in with with war injuries. So they have that constantly. The huge demand at that work demand. They also have the additional pressure wondering whether the next patient that comes through may be a family member or a friend or a community member. They're working under extremely difficult circumstances because it's been so challenging to get medical supplies and equipment to the hospitals to resupply them. They're running out of electricity and and water. And of course, there's the constant bombardment and just that pressure of and attacks on health care. We've documented over 120 attacks on health care. So they've been heroic. They continue to be heroic in these incredibly difficult circumstances.

NY: Can we talk a bit more about supplies? We heard from a doctor earlier who said he was operating without pain relief. What kind of medical supplies are most needed in Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza?

RICHARD BRENNAN: Yeah, So we really do need surgical supplies and trauma supplies and dedicated orthopaedic equipment. Exactly as you say, the types of drugs that are needed for for emergency surgery, such as anaesthetics and painkillers. And then we need all the other disposable supplies and medical supplies, such as intravenous fluids, bandages and so on. And again, it's been very, very difficult to get that supply chain in going consistently into into Gaza. We've only been able to do two deliveries to the north over the last few weeks. And today we heard that UNRWA, which is the UN agency inside Gaza that's been doing a large proportion of the of the distributions there are unable to continue as of today because of a lack of fuel. So really desperate situation.

NY: How would you describe the level of treatment they can give Gazans who come into hospital?

RICHARD BRENNAN: Well, you know, very, very, very challenging. And in fact, we increasingly hear doctors say that they're having to make very, very difficult decisions. You have to triage people who come in at the same time based on their their likelihood of survival, frankly. And so, you know, this process of triage, particularly in the context of war trauma, you know, we often use the term who shall live when not everyone can live. And it sounds dramatic, but it is a decision that doctors are making day in and day out because they don't have all the resources. You know, if three patients need one operating room at the same time, who will you take first? If two patients need a ventilator and you only have one, who will you put on the ventilator? These are the practical decisions that are doctors and nurses are having to make day in and day out. And increasingly so because their resources are declining.

NY: Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as a cover for its fighters. Hamas denies this, regardless. What does the W.H.O. want to see happen to protect the patients inside Gaza's hospitals?

RICHARD BRENNAN: But clearly we want, we want a ceasefire. We want unhindered access to hospitals and to communities in need so we can deliver the aid. We want a cessation of attacks on health care. As I mentioned, there are there have been 120 attacks on health care. And, of course, we want the hostages to receive health care as well. We want them released unconditionally also.

NY: Mm hmm. Israel says it's created evacuation corridors around al-Shifa hospital and insists the patients can be evacuated. From what you're hearing, can patients be safely evacuated?

RICHARD BRENNAN: Well, I think that those with less severe conditions are finding a way to be evacuated. You know, there isn't a an organised evacuation right now because we don't have the vehicles. We don't have the fuel right now. So we are looking into different options to evacuate al-Shifa right now. But but frankly, there's no fuel. And so we can't have convoys of ambulances moving at this stage because of that problem. I did hear of efforts by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society to try and evacuate patients from Al-Quds hospital, which they operate. And that was put on pause because of a security incident. So we're looking at options now, but it is extremely challenging. There aren't many practical ways we can do this right now. Just having one road that is protected for the movement of personnel is one thing. But then having the vehicles, the fuel, the equipment, the staff is another thing. And all those conditions are met for a safe evacuation at the present time.

NY: What would the show like to see the rest of the world do as this health care crisis worsens?

RICHARD BRENNAN: Well, as I mentioned, you know, we we need a cease fire. We need resources. The W.H.O. put out an A what? The U.N. put out an appeal for for $1.2 billion across the board for health care and food and water and shelter and sanitation. We've put out an appeal for 110 million. Clearly, we need resources because less than half the hospital beds that were available prior to the conflict are now available again as needs. So we need the cease fire. We need the access to those in need. We need the resources and we need respect for the neutrality of health care.

NY: Thank you very much for your insights on this.

RICHARD BRENNAN: Thank you very much for the time.

NY: Dr. Richard Brennan is the regional emergency director of the World Health Organisation Eastern Mediterranean Region, and he was in Cairo. CBC correspondent Briar Stewart has been following this story from Jerusalem. Briar, Hello.

BRIAR STEWART: Hello.

NY: So I understand you spoke with the director of al-Shifa Hospital over the weekend when it was still operational. And since then, what did he tell you about the situation in the hospital?

BRIAR STEWART: Yes, I have spoken with him several times. And I have to say that it's very difficult to get in touch with the doctors and the officials inside the hospital because of communications when I do manage to reach somebody. The calls often last for 30 seconds or a minute. And when I talked to the director this morning, it really did sound quite chaotic behind him. I could I could hear children crying. And really what we're hearing is a situation that is becoming more dire by the hour. You have hundreds of critically ill patients still inside. People are lining the corridors. And what officials are saying is that there are dead bodies outside of the building, killed in the fighting, and it's too unsafe to bring them to the morgue or to bury them. So now the medical staff at the hospital are making preparations to bury them themselves.

NY: Israel claims Hamas has built its headquarters in bunkers and tunnels under al-Shifa hospital. What can you tell us about those claims?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, Israel has been saying this for quite some time, saying that there was a command centre under al-Shifa. And yesterday, the Israel Defence Forces released a video of what they say is a command centre under a different hospital, Al Rantisi Hospital, which is a paediatric facility. Now there were 18 patients that were still there on the weekend and after they were evacuated Sunday, the IDF went in and they released a video which they say shows tunnels, ammunition, explosives, even baby bottles in the basement. They show what they say is a wall with plain curtains on it as a as as a backdrop essentially for filming hostage videos. Now, CBC cannot verify any of these videos, but Israel says that this is essentially proof of what they've been saying for quite some time. A denies Hamas has denied using these hospitals. And I do want to mention that every time I've spoken to doctors in them, I have asked them if they have seen fighters, if they've seen anybody with weapons, and they always tell me no.

NY: The hospital ran out of fuel over the weekend. What has Gaza's health ministry said about the impact of that on patients and in particular infants?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, they're not able to provide treatment. And in terms of the infants, they were more than 30 premature babies who were in incubators and the incubators shut down, they say, because the generator running them ran out of fuel and they released photos of these these tiny, frail infants lying side by side on a bed. And it is it is difficult to get kind of an accurate picture of the current situation. But we understand. From doctors. They said that a number of those infants have died.

NY: Israel says it offered fuel to power the incubators. What do we know about that?

BRIAR STEWART: Yes, Israel said that they offered fuel over the weekend, 300 litres, and they said Hamas was preventing them from the doctors from basically receiving it. I spoke to the director. He said that was not true, that the fuel was left outside, but it was too difficult, too dangerous for the medical staff to go and get it. Eventually the 300 litres did make its way into the hospital. The director said it was received with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross. But he said that fuel was nowhere near enough. I mean, it was, he said it was basically enough for half an hour. And what they really need is over 10,000 litres for a 24 hour period.

NY: There was also news yesterday that Vivian Silver, the Canadian Israeli peace activist from Winnipeg, is dead. What do we know about her death?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, her death was just confirmed by her family, by her son. And what the family has learned is that she was killed back on October 7th when Hamas stormed her kibbutz, which was just a few kilometres from Gaza. Now, she had been messaging with her family the morning of the attack. And when they didn't receive news about her death, I mean, they were hopeful that she was among the roughly 240 hostages. And I say hopeful because at least there was a chance that she was alive and could be returned. Israeli officials say they have now identified her remains. And I think the fact that it has taken five weeks really speaks to the brutality of the attack on October 7th and just the horrific way that that people were killed and the fact that it's taken so long just to identify individuals. Mm hmm.

NY: There were protests over the weekend in Israel, thousands calling for the release of the hostages taken by Hamas. What were protesters asking Israel's government to do?

BRIAR STEWART: They want Israel's government to do more and in particular to perhaps be more willing to accept some of these deals which are apparently on the table. There have been a lot of rumours about negotiations and what Israel and Hamas are talking about. But the most recent revelation, if you will, is that Hamas says they are willing to release 70 hostages in exchange for a five day truce. And Israel has always said there will be no cease fire, no pause, long pause in hostilities unless all of the hostages are released. But but, you know, families are very concerned that the longer this war goes on, the more that Israel is targeting these these underground tunnels, that that hostages could be killed just by the war going on around them.

NY: Briar, what are you watching for next?

BRIAR STEWART: Well, I think the thing is really just what happens with this hospital and how are these patients going to be evacuated? Are they going to be evacuated? Both sides says they want to get them out of there, but it's not happening. And we've heard a lot about, you know, humanitarian corridors and people evacuating to the south. Well, you know, once they go further south, there's really no where else for people to go. So you have a large population without shelter. We're told fuel is running out. The U.N. says that within 48 hours, they're not going to have fuel to be able to pump groundwater in a number of wells. So you have all kinds of sanitary issues in it in addition to the violence. And I think the one thing that I wonder is Israel has said that they believe some Hamas fighters have fled to the south. So what happens then? I mean, you have all of these people in the south sheltering. And as Israel pushed further into Gaza to try to eliminate Hamas, as they said they want to.

NY: Briar, thanks so much for your insights on this.

BRIAR STEWART: You're welcome.

NY: CBC correspondent Briar Stewart is in Jerusalem. The CBC News is next. Then, ransomware attacks across the world have become relentless and they're compromising the information and security of everything from states to large companies, including six hospitals in Ontario. In six minutes, what can be done to block the breach? I'm Nora Young, sitting in for Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

The fight to block ransomware attacks

Guests: Ali Dehghantanha, Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove

NY: I'm Nora Young, sitting in for Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. A large Chinese bank, Boeing, the state of Maine. Just some of the big entities who have fallen prey to ransomware attacks. Toronto's Public Library Board met last night to discuss security after it was hit by a cyberattack. And recently, six hospitals in Ontario were attacked, compromising the personal data of millions. Ali Dehghantanha is a director of the Cyber Science Lab at the University of Guelph. Good morning.

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Morning, Nora.

NY: So can you start by explaining how a ransomware attack works?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Well, ransomware attacks are usually conducted through sending a link to the targets, target clicks on that link, and a file is being downloaded that wants that file executed that's the encrypted information on the target, or sometime stealing information from the target and uploaded to the attacker's environment. And then attackers are asking for a ransom payment to be made, usually to digital currencies, to decrypt information and return the data back to the user.

NY: And as I understand it, even if you pay the ransom, you don't necessarily always get your data back.

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: No, not unfortunately. Right. We do have some criminal groups that have a good history of returning data and encrypting the information, but it's like a 50-50 case, right. And yet, like half of those cases that you cannot even receive information even though you paid the ransom.

NY: They're in the news almost daily. Why have they become so common?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Well, with the advancement in the cybercrime business, specifically ransomware as a service now, we have a very layered approach in which the attackers, the core attackers are just writing the malware itself. And then they use a lot of affiliates all around the globe to drop these ransomware to their targets. And then these affiliates will receive a commission. And it becomes so easy, as easy as going to Darknet and registering some of these ransomware as a service for them to get access to these tools. And that's the main reason they are becoming very, very common these days. And the other side, unfortunately, many of our critical infrastructure and businesses are not are below the cyber poverty line. So they are being impacted by the attacks easily. And then once they are impacted, the attackers are trying to leverage their access and gets I mean, for a monetary gain in this case.

NY: What do we know about the perpetrators of these attacks?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Well, there's a big range of hacking groups behind these attacks. As I said, usually the advanced hacking teams that have built these ransomware are really engaging themselves with the target, the usually higher affiliates all around the globe. And they are those who drop the ransomware or send a phishing email, etc., etc.. But there is a big range you can see, like from everybody in the world, from Chinese hacking team to Iranians to Russians to even Western hacking teams that are using ransomware significantly to fund their criminal activities.

NY: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned ransomware as a service. I mean, these are not just sort of lone hackers. Can you tell me a bit about how sophisticated the cyberattack industry has become?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: It is becoming quite sophisticated. We have a lot of layers between the right hackers and the targets. And getting access to these ransom are becoming very easy and they are running into hackers are running it as a business. So you will see that they have you can help line that can help in making sure that the ransomware is working, configuring it for the criminals, for the affiliates who want to drop these on the systems. And then they are routeing the payments to a different means which make it very difficult to track them and identify what is the real source of the attack.

NY: Earlier you mentioned a cyber poverty line. What is that?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Well, there is a definition that if your organisation is if your organisation is in the labour, the investment of the organisation, cybersecurity on the level that if you're hit by the by the attack, it could be ransomware or anything else. Your business become disrupted. Then you are below cyber poverty line. And unfortunately, like 60% of [unintelligible] using Canada based on the recent reports, are below that cyber poverty line, which means they are very vulnerable. The investment that is meeting cybersecurity is not enough to protect the data and protect the business activities online.

NY: I see. So how successful is law enforcement in it actually catching the people behind these attacks?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Oh, well, there were some, I would say luck and success in finding these attackers, especially if the law enforcement's following the money and they can catch the attackers. But it is very difficult to track the payments, tracked around some of the malware and identify them. This requires coordinated activity, usually between law enforcement agencies in multiple countries. And at the same time, these attacks are quite sophisticated. So you need to invest a lot of time and efforts to find those attackers and sometimes even those attack teams are not that widespread. It doesn't justify the Air Force required to just go after them and find it.

NY: Yeah. And how often are they actually prosecuted?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Very little. We have like a few cases, less than five cases of malware that they have been prosecuted.

NY: So what makes certain companies or organisations good targets for them?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: You know, the attackers are always looking for low hanging fruit. And usually those organisations who are not having a mature cybersecurity program are the best targets, but they are private companies or hospitals or schools. It doesn't really matter for the attackers as long as they can get access and drop the ransomware and make the user to pay that. That's the business that they are running there. But I have seen all sorts of targets in the last few years. As I said, hospitals schools are becoming more common these days because they are much more vulnerable. But in the past they have targeted banking sector, they have targeted telcos, they have targeted even pipes, oil and gas pipes. Last year to us, right?

NY: I mean, you mentioned hospitals, like what can it mean for patients to have their data stolen?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Well, unfortunately, patients don't have that much control over their data as they are collected. So it is more responsibility of the hospitals and those who are collecting and purchasing a data to make sure that they are secure. Minimally, what they can do is they can separate the sensitive data. So, for example, they can store the history of the patients in one database, one file, and then the credential of those people left a name, their family name, or they age in another database. So if one of them is impacted or stolen by the attackers, they cannot link these two to each other and cause significant damage.

NY: So if an organisation is faced with a ransomware attack, how do you advise handling it and the ransom demand?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Right. First is foremost, it's important to contact cybersecurity professionals. Never engage yourselves with cyber criminals. So that's the first rule of thumb, because you need to have professionals helping you in first, identifying the scope and the impact of the attack. And those professionals are very good in negotiating a deal. Even if we end up it like being in a situation that you have to pay the ransom. So that's the first rule. The second is making sure that any organisation is following the cyber hygiene rules. And the third rule is to make sure that the data are backed up and stored separately. As I said, you can just divide your sensitive information and store them in different places. So even if the attackers get access to one piece of information, they won't be able to get any value off those data.

NY: Mm hmm. We talked a little bit earlier about the fact that these cyber attacks don't always result in you getting your data back, even if you pay the ransom. But when might it make sense to to pay the ransom?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Very hard to make a judgement call here. As I said, you need to work with said rescue professionals. We are tracking a lot of these cyber criminal groups all around the globe. For most of these ransomware attacks we actually have decryptor. So if you have been impacted, we still have a lot of chances to decrypt the information. We know we're paying the ransomware, but those people who are experts in this field can make a judgement call there that are that a specific hacking team has the reputation to return back the data. Looking at the nature of the ransomware, very something that can be even retrieved because sometimes the algorithm that is used for encryption is like one way encryption algorithms. There's no way to decrypt the information, right? So all of these take into account to just make a decision at that point.

NY: Can we talk a bit about artificial intelligence in all this? What role does I have in preventing and fighting off these cyber attacks?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Wide adoption of the AI is moving the cybersecurity industry from a reactive environment to a preventive, proactive environment. And that's the role that the AI is increasingly playing in cyber security environments, which means that AI agents can monitor which users are more susceptible to cyber attacks, can monitor which systems have not been patched or can monitor and identify the vulnerabilities of the organisation before they are being exploited by the attackers and play a critical role in preventing these attacks. And that is like the growing role of the AI and what we have seen in the past couple of years of the adoption of cyber security.

NY: But are there ways that AI is also making it easier for the cyber criminals to do their work?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Yes. Yes. No doubt. Right. That can be can be useful. Both proposals for the cure for the crime and for the defence proposed. But you know, I mentioned about the cyber poverty, the concept for civer poverty. I personally believe if we have an opportunity, one chance to change the game, it would be in cybersecurity to change the cyber poverty line and help defenders to defend, because normally we know our environment much better than the attackers. And if we can use the AI properly, we can make it very difficult for the attackers to conduct successful attacks. And we can change or say from low hanging fruit to a much higher cybersecurity program. That's it make it, it doesn't work for the attackers to spend time on the force and they probably go for the other targets.

NY: So do you think that I could maybe help us defend kind of at scale so smaller organisations would be able to sort of tap into?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Absolutely. It would. It would reduce the cost of defence significantly. It would make the cyber secure technology accessible to more organisations and it would make it much more simpler to run a cybersecurity program.

NY: What could governments do to clamp down on us?

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Well, first of all, governments can pass the law and audits organisations that are just collecting the information and data that is absolutely necessary for the business and they give control to the users over their data. The thing is, for example, for the hospitals specifically, most of these hospitals have been changed from a paper and pen system to a digital system, and they are collecting the same information they have collected for ages while Vive and I am working with them on asking about the usage of these data, Most of them find that most of these data are not are never used in their day to day activities. There is no reason for them to collect those data. So passing those laws and making organisations accountable for the cybersecurity is the most important things that the government can do. In addition to that, considering cybersecurity and cybersecurity awareness campaigns as an essential factor in a society the same way that's been on fire drills, we need to run cyber activities for all the levels of the people and make them aware of these risks could help significantly in reducing their risk of cyber attacks.

NY: Thank you so much for your insights on this.

ALI DEHGHANTANHA: Thank you. Have a great one.

NY: Ali Dehghantanha is an expert in cyber security and director of the Cyber Science Lab at the University of Guelph.

[Music]

NY: I'm Nora Young, sitting in for Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. Icelanders are used to volcanic eruptions, but this time is different.

SOUNDCLIP

Speaker 3: So we are in a in a big, huge feeling of uncertainty and kind of sadness and and like despair or like you can't- there's no planning anymore. It's just we live just from one day to another and that's it.

NY: That is Hannes Vara. He has been evacuated from the town of Grindavik, along with nearly 4000 other residents. Iceland has declared a state of emergency, with nearly 900 tremors hitting the southern part of the country yesterday and growing fears of a massive volcanic eruption. Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove is a nature photographer in Iceland. We reached him in Grindavik. Hello.

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: Hello.

NY: So we heard Hans Vera there talk about a sadness. What are things like there for you right now?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: Yeah, it's definitely a huge sadness in our community because, of course, we here in Iceland, we live together with all of these volcanoes. But it's been 50 years since a community was directly affected in this scale by it. And it's this feeling of not knowing what's going to happen. Like, is it going to erupt, will it not erupt? Is the town going to be there or not? It's, yeah, it's a very difficult situation to do this right now.

NY: Can you describe the town of Ground Effect, which is at the centre of this?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: It's a fishing village and I think the majority of the income comes from the fisheries there. And it's a very small, peaceful little community which has been in the spotlight a lot in the last three years because there have been multiple eruptions about ten, ten, 12 kilometres from the town and everything was very joyous up to up to now, of course.

NY: Volcanologists say a 15 kilometre stretch of magma is running under the town. What sort of damage is that causing?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: And that causes enormous damage. Of course all the houses here in Iceland, they're built to withstand seismic activity, but what they are not built for is the fact that the ground is shifting and is making dramatic movements. One of the biggest issues that we are seeing is that houses are being split apart. We are seeing issues with we are seeing issues with sinkholes appearing around the around the town. And it's, the damage is enormous.

NY: Yeah. Beyond evacuations, what's being done to prepare for this potential eruption?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: And they're preparing to protect the infrastructure like the geothermal power plants that there's near near to the village and other are not severe. They're just really keeping people away because we don't really know what is going to happen and where it's going to happen. So, you know.

NY: As a photographer, how are you thinking about this visually as something to document?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: It's very, very difficult. I'm not here today. I'm going to make some recordings for international media. And I think that's maybe going to be the last time I will do this, because it's very difficult to to see something destroy a community like this. Like, I've been documenting the volcanic eruptions here in Iceland the last three years. And it's been very beautiful up to now. And now it's a very different side of volcanoes that we are seeing, which makes it very challenging for me.

NY: Are you in danger?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: No, I don't think so. At least I personally live in Reykjavik. I'm now here in Gridavik and we keep away from the area and everybody is essentially ready to go. And of course, the time in the town to document things is very limited.

NY: Your Instagram page is filled with images of magma and lava and volcanoes erupting. What are some of the images that you're capturing?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: You mean in the town now.

NY: Or in general?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: Yeah, in general. I spend a lot of time documenting nature. I don't focus as much on the human elements in nature, but I like to show the emptiness of the landscape we have here in Iceland. I want to show a certain beauty and things that people don't get to see every day, for example, with the volcanoes and the lava. And I think that's kind of my goal, is to show people how beautiful the world is out there. So this is very different now.

NY: Mm hmm. I was in Iceland this summer, and the landscape is really quite extraordinary. How would you describe it for for people who've never been there?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: It's otherworldly. It's like another planet. Yeah, I think that's the best description you can give of it. Yeah.

NY: Are there images that you've captured as this latest act? He has been going on that that have really stayed with you.

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: Um, not yet. I think my mind is not really fresh enough to look at it in that way right now.

NY: So what does it feel like to be there right now?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: It feels very eerie. I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit nervous because, like, we don't know what's going to happen. But it also feels really strange to be in this town that I spent a lot of time in the last three years. I went to restaurants, talked to locals. I took many, many tourists here. And it's you know, it's heartbreaking to see what happened here.

NY: I don't really quite have the language to ask this. How close can you get to what's going on? Like, are you. Are you close to volcanic activity?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: Um, well, at the moment, there's nothing to see. All the magma is on the ground that's making its way up to the surface. So this area where it is suspected that the intrusion is moving. It's definitely off limits. And I'm also personally not going to walk there because it's very it's very unsafe to be there.

NY: How is this different from previous volcanic eruptions?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: It's different because the scale is different. The speed of it is different. Like not even a week ago, there was nothing going on. And now we have, like, a town that's completely destroyed. The moment, like on Friday afternoon this began and the moment during which this happened, it was a matter of hours. The the earthquakes were non-stop, continuous, and they just ripped the whole landscape apart. And that's really scary that this magma tunnel of 15 kilometres long, was not there Friday morning and in the evening this magma tunnel reached underneath the town, 15 kilometres away from where it began. And that's really, really frightening. Yeah.

NY: Yeah. What is it that worries you the most right now?

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: Oh, I'm not sure. I think I'm more worried about the consequences this will have. I think at this point the town is already lost, and I believe that the situation is, is what's going to come after this because this is a community of 4000 people that suddenly gets displaced. Where are all these people going to go? What effect is this going to have on all the other people who live on this peninsula? I think that's nuts. Definitely some topics that I've been thinking about the last days.

NY: Thanks so much for your insights on this.

JEROEN VAN NIEUWENHOVE: Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me.

NY: Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove is a nature photographer in Iceland. Staying in Iceland. Here's another force of nature from that country. Here is Bjork. And It's Oh So Quiet.

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NY: That was Bjork with It's Oh So Quiet. Coming up after your regional update, Iceland has its own distinct island culture and so thousands of kilometres away doesn't even land. Author Michael Crummy on why the lure and history of his island home has given him so much to write about. Coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Nora Young and you're listening to The Current.

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Iceland braces for volcanic eruption; and author Michael Crummey

Guests: Michael Crummey

NY: I'm Nora Young, sitting in for Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current. Matt Galloway was at the Writers at Woody Point Festival in August. He had a chance to talk with with author Michael Crummey.They sat on the deck of the Gros Morne Inn. Facing a sweeping view - of the town, the mountains, and the waters of Bonne Bay. It's the landscape - and the history and people of Newfoundland - that inspire Michael Crummey. His latest book is called The Adversary. Here's Matt's conversation with him.

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MG: So as a writer from this province, I mean, what does it mean to read a book like this and talk about a book like this here?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: I just came from a little meet and greet, and I was meeting people who have been reading my books for 20, 25 years. You know, and I know writers often overstate this, but it is true that most of the time we're just sitting alone in a room. And it's easy to feel like the work doesn't have a home outside of that. Your little space and the people most of the people in a meeting are people from this place and they talk about being grateful to see it. That finding books about the place that they're from is really it makes the place different, feel more real somehow.

MG: Despite the fact that they're from that place.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Yeah. And my friend Stan Dragland, who we lost recently, um, great writer and literary critic, and he talks about how by being translated into works of art, into films and into songs and into two stories, places become more real to the people from those places. And I totally recognise that. I mean, when I was growing up, there were no writers that I knew from Newfoundland or had heard of from Newfoundland. The real World. In one way, what felt real were places where NHL hockey games were played. Right, because that was on television and somehow that felt more real. And I think the kind of explosion in the arts in Newfoundland in the last 25 years, 30 years, part of what it's done for people here and has done for me is to make me feel this place is as real and as rich and as nourishing as any place in the world.

MG: Tell me about the place that this novel is set and Mockbeggar.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Well, Mockbeggar is, after having said that is completely made up.

MG: But there is I mean, there is a place, right?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Like there is. No, no, there is there is a place in Newfoundland called. Mockbeggar which is part of a town called Bona Vista. And a lot of the kind of background stories and anecdotes and just hints of character that I used in the Innocents, which is the novel before this one, I got from a book about Buena Vista by a local guy named Bruce Wilson. And it was it was just a sort of a community history. This is the story of Bona Vista and within that talked about different tiny communities around Bona Vista that became Bona Vista eventually. And one of them was Mark Bigger. And I just loved the name. So I stole it.

MG: As one does.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: And but of course, the Mockbeggar in this book has no connection to that place, particularly.

MG: Describe the Mockbeggar in the book.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Well, the Mockbeggar in the book is for those people who have read The Innocents. It's the kind of big town near the cove that the brother and sister in the Innocence, it's never seen, but it's talked about by big town. I mean, like a tiny fishing village where the where the merchants who control the shore have set up their premises. This is the late 19th century and everybody in the town is involved in and completely dependent on the fishery. Almost all of them are Europeans who've come over from England or Ireland or some other part of the continent, um, and have set up in Newfoundland, either by choice or bad luck and have to. And in good years they get by and in bad years things are really bad.

MG: Tell me more about that and what life would have been like.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Well, the fishery at that time was just a really and for most of its history was a pretty brutal undertaking and very it was fraught and unpredictable. And the way that the fishery was set up at the time was what they called the truck system. Every shore would have its merchants and they would give in the spring of the year on credit. They would give the materials that a fisherman needed or a crew needed to to fish for the season. And then at the end of the season, the fishing crews would have to give what they cut back to the merchant as payment for what they got on credit.

MG: And you hope the numbers work out.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: And you hope the numbers work out. But of course, the numbers were all controlled by the merchant. So most people live their lives in debt. It bred a particular kind of people, I think, because the fishing was incredibly hard physical work and particularly dangerous because you were in small open boats on the on the North Atlantic. And for those people, I think there was almost there was very little in their lives that they had control over. They were always at the mercy of one thing or another, the weather, the sea, whether or not the fish showed up, how long the growing season was, which was always short at the best of times. And of course they were completely dependent on the price of fish, which was completely dependent on what was happening in politics in Europe or in South America.

MG: Can you imagine living like in a community like that?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: No, no, I can't. And, you know. People often ask that question. If he could live in any other era, what era would who would it be? And I always say no time before flush toilets. And most of the people, including my father, you know, who grew up in that world, they were not nostalgic about it. You know, my dad would talk nostalgically about the people, and as I said, they were a particular kind of people because of the way they were forced to live. But the circumstances of the life, the like, what you had to do day to day to just to have water to drink and food to eat, that that's something that I would never want to have to deal with myself. But I think I think the reason that I write about the past, so frequently is because I'm fascinated by those conditions that people were forced to live in and.

MG: The characters who I mean, eavesdrop, the guy who's at the centre of this book who's. And how would you describe him?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Um, well, he was one of the few merchants on the shore. Born into a merchant family. And I would say, I don't know if I can say this on the CBC, but he's an arsehole and a complete reprobate.

MG: Sadistic, sadistic, awful human being.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Yeah, I would say a particularly kind of sociopathic narcissist. And I would say his sister is a different kind of- There, so there's the brother and sister and there's a brother and sister in The Innocence. And this book is kind of, as I said, a companion and kind of a reflection like the it's the flipside of The Innocence. So, of course, there's a brother and sister in this book, but instead of a story about a brother and sister who love each other and basically survive because they want the other person to survive. And it was kind of a warped Adam and Eve story.

MG: At this point incredible. But anyway, continue.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: This book is more of an A Cain and Abel story, and it's a brother and sister who despise each other and actively wish each other ill.

MG: How do you think she's similar? The sister, The widow? Yeah. How is she? Similar to her brother who you described in their [unintelligible]terms?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Yeah, well, they're completely, completely opposite characters in terms of how what they want from the world and how the things that they think are important in the world. But they are exactly the same in the sense that all of the relationships are transactional, that they're only interested in other people is what they can get from them. And once they've gotten all they can get from somebody, they lose interest completely.

MG: And cut bait.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: And are quite happy in the presence of today to throw them under the bus. And I think, again, this is set a couple of hundred years ago. But what I ended up doing was writing a book that was a direct response to what I saw in the world that I was living in the last I've been living through and we've all been living through the last eight, ten years. What do you mean? Well, I think of I hesitate to talk about this because there isn't a direct parallel, I don't think. But I do feel like we've been watching the world slide into authoritarianism and fascism in the United States definitely. But before that and since in places like Hungary and in Brazil and in the Philippines, there's been a real rise of so-called strongmen of autocrats. And also, I mean, if you look at something like the the climate crisis that we are so clearly in now, like seriously, seriously, that is affecting every single aspect of our lives. I mean, that is fuelled by a fossil fuel industry where the leaders of those industries have known from their own research since the fifties or sixties what it would mean to carry on with business as usual. So I think in some ways I was writing out my sense of what it would be like for a community of people to have to make their lives and make their way in the world with those kinds of people at the top, you know. Both the widow and Abe, to me, are kind of like black holes, and everybody else is caught in an orbit around them. And as the book progresses, that orbit gets tighter and tighter. And eventually, it seems to me everybody is sucked into that. You know, there are there are enablers like the Beadle is a real enabler for for Abe's trap when he when Abe's father dies and Abe takes over. Of course, the Beadle is this character from the Innocence, who's kind of the head man of Abe's traps operation. And he despises Abe, and there's nothing about him that he thinks is.

MG: Good, but he's a willing accomplice.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: But he's a willing accomplice because his position depends on Abe and because in his mind, because of his religious beliefs, he looks at the widow as a greater evil. Right. For a woman to be in that position to him as just complete anathema. So he starts out thinking, I can control this guy, you know, And by doing that makes it more and more possible for Abe to corrupt everybody else around him.

MG: And you see that happening now?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Yeah. I mean, I hate to bring him up. And I mean, if you look at Trump, when Trump was first elected, the notion most people were offering was he'll have enough adults around him to keep him on the straight and narrow. And of course, every adult in the room was completely- they were either completely corrupted by him and ended up enthusiastically cheerleading for him or else they quit and left. That's a kind of dynamic that I was interested in having play out in this book.

MG: Let me ask you about where you set books like this. One thing you did say is that Newfoundland culture is output culture. Hmm. And that you can't understand. This place without understanding airport culture. We've been travelling around going to small communities at the edge of the sea that are facing all sorts of existential threats, climate change being forced back, huge storms that have pushed people's homes into the sea and they're trying to figure out whether they can stay in those communities. What is it about the places that are right at the edge that interests you?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: I mean, I think part of the reason it's kind of a chicken and egg thing. I'm interested in those places on the edge because that's where I'm from and that's where my parents are from. And I'm trying to figure in some ways by writing about those places, I'm trying to figure out, well, how did I become who I am? But I also feel like that people who live in places at the margins and on the edge as people than initially in our ports have since Europeans were settled here. Those people are are forced to be different than people who live in more comfortable circumstances.

MG: What do you mean?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: People are forced to rely on one another. It's impossible to live with the lie that people are independent or that you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps in every single circumstance, or that that people who are going through hard times have brought it upon themselves. Because in those communities in this place, everybody goes through hard times. At some point, everybody requires the assistance of other people. So there's a a kind of generosity that people have no choice but to exhibit. And it has become ingrained in a way, you know, and that's that's the cliche of Newfoundlanders, that they're the friendliest, most open, most generous people. It's true. And it's true because they could not have survived here if they were any different. They had to be that way. But the other side of that, I think, is that there's also a kind of fatalism that's bred into people in those circumstances because there was so much that they couldn't control. There was very little in the way of medical help, medical care. The weather was complete, the fish were completely outside people's control. And you just had to take whatever came your way.

MG: I mean, that's in the books called The Adversary. In some ways, like the place is the adversary, right? It's the weather. It's the fact that summer is awful. It's not the great, wonderful season. And you really are at the mercy of what happens to roll in on the sea.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Yeah. And it's it's one it's an odd thing about Newfoundland is like there's that old joke about in Newfoundlanders that they'll they're the only people who'll be unhappy in heaven because they'll be wanting to go back to the island and that love that people have for this place, which is very real, I've always thought is very unrequited, like it's not really returned by the place, you know, And you look at I mean, you can't grow vegetables here. The weather, like this spring we just went through was just awful. And as I keep having to remind myself, it's often like that. I guess that's why this place has always fascinated me. You know, It's just so particular. And it's true. Every part of the island is so particular, you know? So there are some general traits I think, that you'll find in every Newfoundland community. But if you spend time in any Newfoundland community, in any part of the island, you'll realise each one is its own animal, its own creature, and it's because their relationship to the to where they live depends on how far away the fishing grounds are, how much arable land there is in their particular part, whether there's a merchant in the community, or if the merchant lives in another part of another part of the island. All of those things play into how people see themselves in the world that they live in.

MG: What happens when that's threatened? I mean, one of the things and it's not just in port communities, but in those communities that are right on the edge that have faced cataclysm because of climate change and these enormous storms is that people are being forced away from You can't live there. You can't live right at the edge of of the sea. And the government's actually telling people that they need to move.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Yeah, well, that's just that's a story that's in one way or another, has been playing out in Newfoundland since Confederation. Right. And since the collapse of the fishery, the fishery in 1992, all of those communities have shrunk and the young people are moving late. There's the only reason for those settlements to be where they are. As far out on the edge as they can get is to be as close to the fish as possible. That's why they're there. So without the codfish, those communities don't make sense. They really don't. So I think a part of what we've been dealing with for the last generation or two generations is how do we make a life here now? And in some cases, people are saying, well, we can't. Right. Where I live in St John's, they talk about it as the the metro area. And it's probably the only place in Newfoundland where the population is growing. And it's because people are moving in from the airports.

MG: What do you lose if people if people if you can't make a life there?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: I worry that some of the losses are going to be the things that are most unique about the place, you know, and that are most that we are proud of stuff, which is that sense of community and that willingness to put yourself on the line for other people. But maybe that's just because I'm a pessimist at heart. I don't know.

MG: How does writing about the past I mean, how does that shape how you think about this place now?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Well, to be honest, I feel like when I'm writing about the past, I'm writing about this place now. Like, what I'm trying to do is find the roots of the things that I recognise from my own life, from my parents and in my kids. So I don't I don't feel like I'm writing about the past, you know? I feel like the past is just a place to set a story about my own. Sense of what Newfoundland is and to it with this book, with the adversary and with the innocence as well. I think the books before that were particularly about Newfoundland. And I wanted to say something about Newfoundland.

MG: And you don't see that in these books.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: I feel like Newfoundland is the place where these books happen. And I'm trying to be as true to the place as I can. But what I'm interested in, in the innocence, I was interested in childhood and in the ways that what you know or don't know as a child. How. You know, like my own childhood was, I think like everybody's completely confusing and bewildering and in some ways terrifying.

MG: Awkward and humiliating and...

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: All of those things. So I was writing a story about two children who were going through all of those things with no resources whatsoever. And this book again, I'm writing about the world that I feel like I'm living through. And the past is just a convenient place to set that. You know, but the issues that I'm interested in addressing are exactly the same. So so I hope that I'm presenting the world there authentically. But what I'm after is something that feels to me at least, much more contemporary and much more present.

MG: So much of of this place is about the language and how people express themselves. And I mean, that comes through in your books. But in this book, it's unbelievable. What is a dictionary of vulgar tongue?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Well, the Dictionary of the vulgar tongue. It was a dictionary compiled by a guy named Francis Grosse. I think it's 1798 or 1780 something, and it was updated in 1811.

MG: The vulgarity had had progressed certain well that the book needed to be updated.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: At that time. At the time, vulgar just meant common. So it was the speech of the common people. And and it's actually a dictionary that was compiled in Britain. So when I was writing The Innocence, I realised most of the characters here are not Newfoundlanders. They're Europeans who are working in Newfoundland. So I went looking for some sense of how people spoke at the time in Britain. And I found this dictionary of the vulgar tongue, which was just a riot from start to finish. It's mostly the language of thieves, pickpockets, prostitutes, seamen, all of the what would have been called the lower classes. And just the rawness of it, but also the creativity of the language was so great that I just decided I was going to try to get as much of that as I could into The Innocence. And I've gotten even more, I think, into the adversary because there are so many more characters speaking.

MG: Can you give us an example of that? I mean, something that that speaks to the rawness, as you say, of the language?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Yeah. I mean, I was trying to go through and just find some of the stuff that, for example, there was, there's a group of prostitutes who come to Mockbeggar and set up one term for process at the time where Mary arse Christians, which sounds like a Newfoundland term. And Mary Begot is a word for a bastard or for a child born out of wedlock in Newfoundland. And I'm sure that that's there's a connection there between those two. But then all of the words for genitalia, for example. So the man, Thomas, was also known as a jewel for ladies or a tickle tail or a whore pipe.

MG: We should have been a parental guide. Yes. Before this section of the conversation. Well, continue.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: But the nice thing about them, of course, is that you're not saying what you're saying, but you're saying.

MG: Could mean almost anything.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: So a woman's commodity was a crinkom crankom or a man trap, or my favourite was the venerable Monosyllables. So and there was all kinds of great insults, like a lazy person or a person you really dislike was a shit a bed, a stupid person was caulk brain cath lolly. And so as I was going writing through the book and I'd read through the dictionary multiple times, I would find myself in a circumstance where I thought, this is a point where Abe or or one of the prostitutes would say something. And I would go back to my notes and to see if I could find the exact right phrase for that moment. And it's a real trick because it can feel completely forced and made up. It can feel like there's a guy sitting in a chair going through a dictionary. So I was trying to find circumstances. And when those things where those things felt completely natural and where it added to the flavour and to the movement of the of the prose as well.

MG: You talked I mean, part of it doesn't feel forced. It doesn't feel like somebody sitting there with a dictionary. It feels like you are immersed in another world. Just finally, you talked earlier about being at this festival. And I mean, we should say like we're sitting outside in the sunshine in this beautiful setting.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: There's Grose Morne is right over your shoulder.

MG: Water and Grose Morne's behind us. And it's amazing. You were at the festival and you met readers who said that it's as though, you know, you were writing about the place that they were from and that it felt more real. Yeah. In that writing, when you hear that, I mean, as a writer, is that the best kind of praise that you can get?

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: I think so. I really do. I mean, I love hearing for people who are not from here, who also love the books, because when I started writing, I did not know if this would translate at all. And that's a real thrill. Like to like the books have been translated in high places. Like all the novels have been published in Poland, for example. And I did a little tour over there, and it was so great to, like, meet people from Warsaw or wherever and to have them say, I love this book. But to know to have people from here. Say that it feels like I'm writing out of their lives. After my book, [unintelligible] came out. I'd like the my favourite comments were from people who said I felt like I was listening to my grandparents talk.

MG: You just wonder whether there is an extra responsibility in some ways to those people now. No disrespect to the readers and Poles, who love your book,

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: Sure, sure.

MG: But whether those people who who who see their family. Yeah. See, whether you as a writer from here feel a greater responsibility to that.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: I think so. I mean, one of my first books was a little little book of poetry and prose pieces called Hard Line, which was mostly about my dad's life and me stealing his best stories. But I always talked about that as a love letter to my father and to the world that he came from. And to a certain extent, I think that's been true of everything I've written that it's been a love letter to. I mean, nobody, I think, could accuse me of glossing over the negative side of things, but it is an attempt to get this place down on paper and to give it back to to people who experience the world that way through reading books, which is kind of was how I grew up as well, You know, like learning the world by reading.

MG: I'm a huge fan and it's just great to talk to you, but it's great to talk to you here. Yeah. Thank you very much.

MICHAEL CRUMMEY: This has been a real pleasure. Thanks, Matt.

NY: Michael Crummey’s book is The Adversary. Matt Galloway spoke with him in August at the Writers at Woody Point Festival on the West Coast of Newfoundland. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. Michael Crummey said he thinks of his writing as a love letter to Newfoundland. And so it feels fitting to end today with a tribute to a musical icon from there. Singer-songwriter Ron Hynes died in 2015 - and this fall, his friends released a tribute album in his memory. It's called Sonny Don't Go Away. This is Alan Doyle and the Dardanelles, with St. John's Waltz. I'm Nora Young. Matt Galloway is back with you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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