5 Facts about Station 11 and Emily St. John Mandel

/0 Comments/in /by

Coming up this week is our next event Music Inspired by Emily St. John Mandel’s Station 11. The book is a fascinating story on what artists do to make a new and meaningful life after the collapse of our society. I am enamored with it and took to the Internet to find out more about the book itself and its author. Let’s take a look:

It’s an award winner.

The book won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2015. Chair of the judges, Andrew M Butler, said: “While many post-apocalypse novels focus on the survival of humanity, Station Eleven focuses instead on the survival of our culture, with the novel becoming an elegy for the hyper-globalized present.” The award honors the best science fiction novel published in the United Kingdom during the previous year.

 

It is inspired by Star Trek

The symphony’s motto “survival is insufficient” isn’t from Shakespeare. Author Mandel was inspired by an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. She said in a 2015 interview with NPR, “I remember watching that episode and I remember being absolutely struck by that line. Survival is never sufficient. Here in the present, we play — we play musical instruments at refugee camps. We put on plays in warzones. Immediately following the Second World War, there was a fashion show in Paris. There’s something about art I think that can remind us of our humanity. It could remind us of our civilization. So that line became almost the thesis statement of the entire novel.”

 

The movie rights have been purchased

Hollywood producer Scott Steindorff paid six figures for the TV and movie rights to the novel in 2015. There has been no other production news on an upcoming show or movie, however.

 

Mandel made more than 100 stops on her book tour

Mandel visited over 100 places on her worldwide book tour, including many stops in libraries throughout Michigan, the setting of the book. She also learned she was pregnant on tour and chronicled the her journey in an article for Humanities in early 2016

She has a new short story

Future Tense, a collaboration by Arizona State University, New America, and Slate to explore how emerging technologies will change the way we live, commissioned Mandel to write a short story. The story, Mr. Thursday, fits into their theme and is the second in a series. It’s available to read for free at Slate.

 

What are your favorite facts on either Station 11 or its author Mandel? Let us know in the comments and see you Thursday at the Annex Theater!