East Van Calling Garth Mullins

Sci-fi / Afrofuturist writer Nalo Hopkinson says for people of colour living with brutal police violence, unemployment and crumbling infrastructure: ”it’s not the apocalypse, its just Tuesday”

"What happens to disabled people in the brave new world?" Nalo Hopkinson asks. "A lot of science fiction is guilty of trying to cure us. More and more of us are standing up and saying, 'we're not sick. The world is. Fix the world, but don't necessarily fix us.'”

Nalo was born in Jamaica and has also lived in Trinidad, Guyana and for the past 35 years in Canada. Nalo is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside.

She’s written six novels, including Brown Girl in the Ring; a short story collection and a chapbook called Report from Planet Midnight.

I spoke to her about diversity in science fiction and why Hollywood’s dystopias resonate so much with our present. Maybe for some, the end is already upon us.

Thanks to KUCR at University of California, Riverside and CBC Vancouver for making studio time available.

Thanks also to Lisa Hale for producing and to Jacob Dryden for the score.

Part of this interview appears in our CBC Radio One Ideas documentary “the Coming Zombie Apocalypse.”

Listen to the whole program at cbc.ca/ideas.

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