Time Sensitive George Saunders on the Power of Fiction to Enliven the World
May 6, 2026
George Saunders, acclaimed novelist and teacher known for Lincoln in the Bardo, explores the moral power of fiction. He discusses why death scenes and a bygone narrator illuminate our moment. He talks about humor, meditation’s influence on his writing and life, portraying ordinary people with compassion, and how storytelling can wake readers to moral truths.
01:16:03
Steinbeck Made the Depression Feel Present
- Reading The Grapes of Wrath while working brutally long days made the Depression suddenly vivid and relevant.
- Saunders saw direct parallels between crew life and Steinbeck's characters, which politicized his view.
Humor Lets Fiction Be A Shared Experience
- Kurt Vonnegut taught Saunders to write as a shared experience rather than a lecture.
- Slaughterhouse-Five showed him that abandoning realism can create a truer psychological space for readers.
Blue Collar Work Shaped Saunders's Compassionate Lens
- Menial and dangerous jobs taught Saunders the systemic pressure and 'ambient' desperation of working-class life.
- Those experiences led him to write compassionately about people who are 'dented' by life.
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Intro
00:00 • 4min
Saunders's fascination with the first minutes after death
04:17 • 3min
Using a bygone narrator to view the present
06:55 • 4min
Climate emergency and portraying a powerful oilman
10:39 • 2min
Writing everyday people with compassion
12:44 • 2min
Ambient cruelty and political powerlessness
14:53 • 1min
Karma, collapse, and political futures
16:20 • 1min
Death as moral reckoning in Vigil
17:25 • 3min
The immediacy of each moment's importance
19:57 • 2min
From Catholic Mass to Buddhist meditation
21:35 • 6min
Meditation's practical effects on family and writing
27:10 • 2min
Ad break
28:49 • 1min
Johnny Tremain and discovering prose sound
30:13 • 5min
The Grapes of Wrath connecting literature to life
35:08 • 2min
Vonnegut's tonal shift and shared experience
37:07 • 2min
Early jobs shaping compassion and subject matter
39:14 • 3min
Humor as honesty and poetic speech
42:31 • 5min
Music, originality, and avoiding obviousness
47:08 • 3min
Sentence-level revision and the inner nun
50:10 • 5min
Ad break
54:47 • 1min
Syracuse, mentorship, and finding a writer's community
56:12 • 3min
Teaching Russian stories and iconic space
59:23 • 3min
Why the Russian stories produce breakthroughs
01:02:10 • 2min
The roller-coaster and motorcycle sidecar metaphors
01:03:53 • 5min
Fiction's moral work and mutual recognition
01:08:44 • 6min
Outro
01:14:24 • 1min
#40993
Master and Man and Other Stories
Leo Tolstoy
Master and Man and Other Stories is a collection of Leo Tolstoy's shorter works, notable for moral intensity and clear psychological insight.
The title story, Master and Man, portrays a landowner and his servant facing death together, illuminating conscience and human transformation.
Tolstoy's spare narratives explore ethical dilemmas, spiritual awakening, and social critique in 19th-century Russia.
These stories influenced many later writers and provide rich material for discussions of narrative stance and moral consequence.
Saunders references Tolstoy when discussing afterlife representation and the limits of what a writer can assert about what comes next.
#11679
• Mentioned in 5 episodes
Johnny Tremaine
Esther Forbes
#1032
• Mentioned in 39 episodes
Lincoln in the Bardo
Yannick Garcia Porres
George Saunders
Javier Calvo Perales
The novel is set in 1862 during the American Civil War and revolves around the death of Willie Lincoln, the 11-year-old son of President Abraham Lincoln.
After Willie's death from typhoid fever, his spirit finds itself in a limbo known as the bardo, a concept borrowed from Tibetan Buddhism.
Here, he encounters a diverse group of ghosts who are also trapped between the world of the living and the afterlife.
The story delves into themes of grief, both personal and national, as Lincoln grapples with the loss of his son amidst the broader context of the Civil War. The novel is characterized by its unique narrative style, which includes a multitude of voices and historical quotes, and its exploration of the human experience of suffering and love.
#4226
• Mentioned in 12 episodes
Vigil
Jeffrey Wasserstrom
Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink provides a comprehensive overview of Hong Kong's political landscape, from its post-war boom to the recent protests.
The book delves into the context leading to the Umbrella Movement and the 2019 protests, offering insights into the city's unique political system and key figures involved.
Wasserstrom's narrative brings readers to the forefront of the battle for democracy in Hong Kong.
#10978
• Mentioned in 5 episodes
Civil War Land in Bad Decline
George Saunders
#6511
• Mentioned in 8 episodes
Tenth of December
George Saunders
Tenth of December is a collection of short stories by George Saunders, known for its honest, accessible, and moving narratives.
The stories delve into contemporary issues such as class, sex, love, loss, and war, posing moral dilemmas that challenge readers' perspectives.
The title story, 'Tenth of December,' is particularly noted for its poignant exploration of memory, loss, and redemption.
#764
• Mentioned in 47 episodes
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
George Saunders
#335
• Mentioned in 86 episodes
The grapes of wrath
John Steinbeck
Published in 1939, 'The Grapes of Wrath' is a powerful and poignant novel by John Steinbeck.
It tells the story of the Joad family, Oklahoma tenant farmers who are forced to leave their home after the devastating effects of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.
The novel follows their arduous journey along Route 66 to California, where they face numerous hardships, including poverty, exploitation, and the loss of family members.
The book explores themes of family, survival, and the struggle for human dignity in the face of overwhelming adversity.
It also delves into the broader social and economic issues of the time, highlighting the conflict between the powerful and the powerless.
Steinbeck's work is known for its vivid portrayal of the human condition and its impact on American literature and society.
#473
• Mentioned in 67 episodes
Slaughterhouse-five
Kurt Vonnegut
This novel follows the life of Billy Pilgrim, a chaplain's assistant in the U.S.
Army during World War II. Billy becomes 'unstuck in time' and experiences his life out of order, including his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allied firebombing.
The book is a powerful anti-war statement, blending Vonnegut's own experiences with science fiction elements, such as Billy's abduction by aliens from Tralfamadore.
It explores themes of post-traumatic stress, the absurdity of war, and the human condition, using Vonnegut's characteristic black humor and fatalistic tone.
The novelist, essayist, and short-story writer George Saunders—widely celebrated for his novel Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), which won the Man Booker Prize, and book of short stories Tenth of December (2013)—has made it his mission to “de-dullify” the world through his clear-eyed, empathic, often-puckish prose. There’s an unwavering spirit of generosity embedded in the way Saunders tells stories and teaches his craft that ensures his readers and students alike stay along for the ride. Saunders’s curiosity about the afterlife, a recurring motif in his writing, rises to the fore in his latest novel, Vigil, which follows a pair of ghostly figures as they visit the deathbed of a prideful, climate-change-denying Texas oil tycoon.
On this episode, he shares how practicing meditation has shifted his approach to writing and his outlook on life, the underlying importance of humor in his work, and why to be a good storyteller is akin to being a good host.
Special thanks to our Season 13 presenting partner, Van Cleef & Arpels.
Show notes:
[04:34] Vigil (2026)
[04:34] Lincoln in the Bardo (2018)
[19:18] Master and Man and Other Stories (1895)
[19:18] Tolstoy
[27:41] CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996)
[30:22] Esther Forbes
[30:22] Johnny Tremain (1943)
[35:03] John Steinbeck
[35:03] The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
[36:58] Kurt Vonnegut
[36:58] Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
[42:13] Terry Eagleton
[42:30] Mary Karr
[42:43] Jack Handey
[47:19] Jimi Hendrix
[53:13] Aldous Huxley
[56:11] Tobias Wolff
[59:22] A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021)