Every once in a while, there comes a book that reweaves the fabric of our reality; a story that asks us to rethink our relationship with the world around us and offers us a new understanding of our place within it. In 2018, author Richard Powers wrote such a book. The Overstory, which won a Pulitzer Prize, radically challenges our human-centric narratives of control and technological transformation and instead offers a story of kinship with the living world.
In this interview, Richard reflects on this kind of connective storytelling, his characters’ deep entanglement with trees, and the many people who felt a shift in their own relationships with the plants and creatures around them after reading his book.
The Emergence Magazine Listening Hour airs Mondays at 7pm on KALW and KALW.org beginning Monday, April 29.
