In conversation with Laura McGrath, Assistant Professor of English at Temple University

A “soul-quaking” (Los Angeles Review of Books) meditation on the everyday miracles we take for granted set amongst the travels and travails of a Shakespearean acting troupe in the years following a global plague, Emily St. John Mandel’s bestselling Station 11 was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her other novels include Last Night in Montreal, The Singer’s Gun, and The Glass Hotel, included by Barack Obama on his 2022 summer reading list. Mandel is also a staff writer for art and culture magazine The Millions. Peripherally set in the same universe as Station 11 and The Glass Hotel, Sea of Tranquility follows interconnected time-hopping characters seeking love and metaphysical truth in such far-flung locales as the wilderness of 19th century British Columbia and the domed cities of the 25th century lunar surface.