Tales of Two Planets, John Freeman
Tales of Two Planets, John Freeman
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Tales of Two Planets
Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World

Author: John Freeman

Narrator: Paul Boehmer, David DeSantos, Peter Ganim, Almarie Guerra, Kim Mai Guest, Deepti Gupta, Dominic Hoffman, Sonya Macari, Sunil Malhotra, Jorjeana Marie, Bahni Turpin, Roy Vongtama, John Freeman

Unabridged: 9 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 08/04/2020


Synopsis

Building from his acclaimed anthology Tales of Two Americas, beloved writer and editor John Freeman draws together a group of our greatest writers from around the world to help us see how the environmental crisis is hitting some of the most vulnerable communities where they live.

In the past five years, John Freeman, previously editor of Granta, has launched a celebrated international literary magazine, Freeman's, and compiled two acclaimed anthologies that deal with income inequality as it is experienced. In the course of this work, one major theme came up repeatedly: Climate change is making already dire inequalities much worse, devastating further the already devastated. But the problems of climate change are not restricted to those from the less developed world.

Galvanized by his conversations with writers and activists around the world, Freeman engaged with some of today's most eloquent storytellers, many of whom hail from the places under the most acute stress--from the capital of Burundi to Bangkok, Thailand. The response has been extraordinary. Margaret Atwood conjures with a dys¬topian future in a remarkable poem. Lauren Groff whisks us to Florida; Edwidge Danticat to Haiti; Tahmima Anam to Bangladesh; Yasmine El Rashidi to Egypt, while Eka Kurniawan brings us to Indonesia, Chinelo Okparanta to Nigeria, and Anuradha Roy to the Himalayas in the wake of floods, dam building, and drought. This is a literary all-points bulletin of fiction, essays, poems, and reportage about the most important crisis of our times.

About The Author

John Freeman is the editor of Freeman's, a literary annual of new writing, and executive editor of Literary Hub. His books include How to Read a Novelist and Dictionary of the Undoing, as well as Tales of Two Americas, an anthology about income inequality in America, and Tales of Two Cities, an anthology of new writing about inequality in New York City. He is also the author of two collections of poems, Maps and The Park. His work is translated into more than twenty languages, and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. The former editor of Granta, he teaches writing at New York University.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Evestar91 on December 22, 2024

The aptly named Tales of Two Planets is a diverse collection of short stories showcasing the effects of the climate crisis in different countries. Reading so many international authors truly gives the necessary perspective for us to accept and understand the planet's crisis embodied in different eco......more

Goodreads review by Celia on August 12, 2020

This book was published a few days ago and I hope it becomes a bestseller. What is the "tipping point" of our species, after which recovery is impossible? When does the "climate change" of yesterday move through the "climate crisis" of today and become the climate catastrophe? Really, the only sane......more

Goodreads review by Linda on September 30, 2020

Essential reading. All of it. All of you. All of us. Spoiler alert: your destruction of rivers, lands, other animals, and other humans has also destroyed you. But! The legacy of literature IS the ecology that saves us, or anything. Just read the damn book, everybody.......more

Goodreads review by Kristina on January 29, 2021

As an anthology, there were some stories I liked in here and many that didn’t resonate with me. About 20% of them I had no idea why they were included in this collection outside of a brief mention of the climate. I struggled to get through this towards the end after reading a few of the more strange......more

Goodreads review by molly on January 25, 2022

3.5-some of the stories in this book were really shitty and had no depth at all. Cheers to Atwood, Danticat, and the international authors that truly gave me some perspective.......more


Quotes

Featured on the New York Times’ climate change reading list

One of Elle's Best Books of 2020!

"Tales of Two Planets is not soothing. It is not simple or stable, and it refuses easy pieties. You may struggle to make sense of the voices, to fit them into your own overarching narrative, and you will fail because there is no single narrative — these are tales, not a tale, and they force you to ask instead of answering, to continue asking, each tale an answer you’ve probably never heard. When writing can make you do that, at least for a moment, it’s another reason for hope."—Los Angeles Review of Books

“When the introduction has more content and brilliance than most books, you know you are in for a treat in the remaining pages….  Read it. Share it. Let it change the way you relate to our only home.” Orion Magazine

“If you’ve only ever read the headlines about climate change wreaking its worst havoc on the world’s most vulnerable, Tales of Two Planets is likely to shock you. For everyone else, it will be a humanization of the broad trends you’ve read about, rendered with poignant specificity by writers who have actually lived them.” Wired
 
“Full of such varied writing that there’s no opportunity for cliché to take hold . . . A reminder that excellent environmental writing can come from literally anywhere.” The New Republic

“The third in Freeman’s hat trick of anthologies that examines inequalities, Tales of Two Planets, may be the most important, for it addresses a colossal and irreversible threat: climate change [. . . This] collection is critical to understanding our planet beyond the scope of our own personal plights.” Literary Hub

“In this eye-opening anthology about climate change, an impressive cast of contributors including Edwidge Danticat, Mohammed Hanif, and Margaret Atwood reflect on how the grim horror of our current ecological reality is being felt around the world.” Elle

“A powerful and timely collection on a topic that cannot be ignored . . . Assembling the creative work of respected writers from both the developed and developing world, Freeman offers a sobering meditation on the future challenges that everyone will face.” Kirkus Reviews
 
“[E]nvironmental and humanitarian crises in Egypt, Mexico, Hawaii, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and beyond are brought forward in masterful works elegiac, angry, and ironic in Freeman’s clarion global chorus.” Booklist, starred review

“Tragically, climate change is one thing that's not on pause right now, and this impressive collection is a small but engaging way to remind yourself of that [. . .] Every piece is short but impactful.” Outside