Muristek
Elif Shafak on the legacy of lockdown: The pandemic made it clear there is such a thing as society
In the face of death and disease, it became urgent to appreciate family and friendship. But in the face of global challenges, the author argues we now need to embrace humanity more widely
Early in the pandemic, several international publishers – with good intentions, no doubt – posted tweets claiming that the lockdown probably would not make a huge difference for fiction writers, who are, as a general rule, solitary creatures, used to working from home. Not knowing office work or team effort, novelists would be less affected by the changes brought about by Covid. My experience, however, has been the opposite. The pandemic upended life as we knew it; authors and artists were not outside the struggles of wider society. Just because we are hopeless introverts doesn’t mean we were not thrust into a liquid world along with everyone else.
This is a major crossroads for all of us – shaped by the pandemic but also the urgency of climate destruction, growing inequalities and conflict on the European continent and beyond. The decisions that we make now will determine the quality of life for generations to come. None of us has the luxury of being disconnected, disengaged or numb.
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