Join us for a conversation followed by an audience Q&A with Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of How High We Go in the Dark. The conversation will focus on themes associated with worldbuilding from both writerly craft and societal perspectives as it pertains to identity, the environment, and generational memory.

Sequoia Nagamatsu will be joined in conversation by Christine Marran. A reception and book signing will follow the talk. You are welcome to bring your own copy of the book to the signing. Books will also be available for purchase during the reception and book signing.

Space for this event is limited and registration is required. Please list all members of your party attending in the RSVP form. Elmer L. Andersen Library is currently not operating with public hours. Registration is required for admission to the event space and reception. Doors will open at 5 pm. The event will start at 5:15 pm.

About the speakers

Sequoia Nagamatsu

Sequoia Nagamatsu is the author of the novel, How High We Go in the Dark, a national bestseller and New York Times Editors’ Choice, as well as the story collection, Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone. His work has been a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize, a Locus Award, shortlisted for The Barnes and Noble Discover Prize, and longlisted for the Pen/Hemingway Award. He is an associate professor of creative writing at St. Olaf College in Minnesota and is a faculty member of the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program.

Christine Marran

Christine Marran is author of two books including Ecology Without Culture: Aesthetics for a Toxic Age (University of Minnesota Press) and many articles on the environment, literature, and cinema of the Japanese archipelago. She is a professor in Asian studies at the University of Minnesota.

About the book, How High We Go in the Dark

In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.

Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects — a pig — develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resilience of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.

Cosponsors

This is a cosponsored event by the Center for Premodern Studies, the James Ford Bell Library, UMN Special Collections and Rare Books, the Asian American Studies Program, the Environmental Humanities Initiative, the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Department of English.

Event details

What: Building Worlds: Author Sequoia Nagamatsu on Creating Environments Past and Future
When: Friday, Feb. 13, 5:15-6:15 p.m. | Doors at 5 p.m.
Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library