AWW21 The Virus is Here: Pandemics in Fiction - Emily St. John Mandel and Laura Jean McKay
As the Lockdowns of 2020 began, Laura Jean McKay\u2019s story of a world collapsing in the midst of a viral epidemic, The Animals in That Country, seized the popular imagination: a hallucinogenic tale of Zoo Flu with wild symptoms that enable inter-species communication. Emily St. John Mandel\u2019s break-out novel Station Eleven is a gripping, eerie story of civilisation\u2019s collapse in the wake of a flu that wipes out 99% of the world\u2019s population. It sold nearly two million copies worldwide. Both are prescient, terrifying and ultimately hopeful.
\nChaired by Sophie Cunningham