In To See Beyond, the former war correspondent examines how humanity processes despair and finds hope amid conflict and climate catastrophe.

There is a lot of sorrow in this book. How did you balance grief without succumbing to it?

There is a lot of sorrow in this book because it’s a book about the world. I was thinking about the end of an era of dragons. I had this conversation with the Senegalese writer Louis Camara last spring. He said, “We live in a time of dragons, but the time of dragons will end.” Remember the last time you slayed a dragon? When you pinned it to the ground and you knew it was dead, and its massive tail was thrashing about, and it destroyed everything it reached? The dragon is done. I feel extremely hopeful. And I also feel devastated because no one should be paying this price.

What is the dragon?

Empire. Some call it patriarchy. Some call it capitalist colonialism.

What gives you hope?

I teach undergraduate students, and I hear a lot of young people and see a lot of young organizers. They’re not like us. They don’t think in hierarchical terms. They don’t think that there has to be a leader and subordinates. So, I have many reasons to be hopeful. I mean, my god, even in Palestine kids are doing stunts and making music.

How do these essays differ from journalism?

I believe in miracles. There is a lot of magic in this book, and journalism, the way it has evolved, doesn’t believe in miracles. You can’t fact-check wonder. The book opens with a sojourn a friend of mine and I made to a market in Mali to purchase some lion fat for his arthritis, but also possibly for other kinds of protection. There are conversations about prayers and dreams and even the magical properties of books. When I worked as a journalist, my task was pretty much to stick to the facts. The writer I am today, I think, my job is actually to see beyond the facts.

Do you think journalism is up to the task of describing and explaining this moment?

Journalism cannot be the only vehicle. I think theater is a vehicle, visual arts. We need all hands on deck. I was last a journalist
in 2015. I stepped away from journalism because the format was insufficient for me. The last piece of journalism I ever wrote was not published because the magazine editor and I disagreed on the fundamental premise of the story, which was that the world is
suffering as a result of a failure of love. The editor was like, Love is not a policy, what’s the policy? But love, to me, is a policy.