Banning books, waving flags and persecuting racial minorities. Sound familiar?

After New York Times–bestselling novel Little Fires Everywhere – which was adapted into a popular miniseries starring Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon – comes a similarly moving tale about the unbreakable bond between a mother and son.

Celeste Ng’s third novel, Our Missing Hearts, is set in a marginally more dystopian version of Trump’s America and follows Bird, a young boy searching for his politically dissident mother, and Margaret, a poet striving to change the world for her son.

Listen to Celeste and host Claire Nichols as they discuss hope in the face of isolation and cynicism, the redemptive power of storytelling, and the capacity for art to create meaningful change.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2024 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

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