A Legendary World-Builder on Multiverses, Revolution and the 'Souls' of Cities
About this episode
Klein speaks with three-time Hugo Award-winning fantasy author N.K. Jemisin about her Great Cities duology and what science fiction can say about the present. Jemisin explains why multiverses dominate contemporary storytelling — a 'what if' lens for an era of climate change, fascism, and upheaval — and discusses building living cities into her fiction. She describes her ambivalence about gentrification, depicts whiteness as a homogenizing force and policing as a system in her work, and explains why she refused to center Donald Trump in her books, describing him as poorly written fiction. They also cover how the pandemic revealed that powerful interests, not organic change, reshape cities, Jemisin's debt to Lovecraft and her love of comics, and her three book recommendations.