Wednesday 10 March / 19.00 p.m / Online

Sofia Samatar’s essay ‘Standing at the Ruins’, published in The White Review No. 30, parses centuries of global writing about climate change, from Imru al’Qays via Mary Shelley to Ahmed Saadawi. Exploring the ways in which writers have sought – or avoided – the language to evoke lost worlds, extreme weather and planetary mourning, Samatar’s history offers ways to ‘stand at ruins’: to look squarely at what might be more comfortable to ignore in the contemporary global crisis. Sofia Samatar will discuss her essay in conversation with Kate Zambreno.

SOFIA SAMATAR is the author of four books, most recently Monster Portraits, a collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar. Her fiction has received several honours, including the World Fantasy Award. Her first work of non-fiction, the memoir The White Mosque, is forthcoming from Catapult Books.

KATE ZAMBRENO is the author most recently of Drifts. To Write As If Already Dead, a study of Hervé Guibert, is forthcoming in June.

A Zoom link will be sent to all attendees on the day of the event. The event is free, but please consider donating to support the work of The White Review and its writers. Sign up via Eventbrite here.