From the Ashes : Sarah Jaffe on Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire

As I picked up the pieces of my life, I began to see traces of grief everywhere. And yet the world as we know it makes so little space for mourning. This fundamental contradiction seemed to me suddenly to be at the heart of every rebellion, every political battle, every bit of the spectacular violence speeding up all over the world. I found it at the heart of every story I was covering as a reporter, even before the pandemic began. I went on a journey through the land of the dead, learning about grief, my own and other people’s, and this book you hold in your hands is the result.

- Sarah Jaffe

Join us for a very special evening in the company of acclaimed journalist Sarah Jaffe and her new book From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World of Fire, a book as utterly necessary as it is healing.

In the wake of a pandemic that has caused millions of deaths worldwide, a movement that continues to fight against the loss of Black life, the planetary disaster wrought by climate change, to the personal loses that impact each and every one of us—this era is one of significant and substantial loss, yet we barely have time to acknowledge it. Our grief is personal, political, collective, and seemingly all-encompassing as we battle unravelled hopes and expectations, dreams diminished, and aspirations desiccated. It is not surprising that the question simply becomes: what can we do?

In From The Ashes, Sarah Jaffe makes the case for grief as vital for a caring society, and a necessary catalyst for change. We're delighted to be welcoming her for a conversation with author and activist Emily Kenway.

Our speaker:

Sarah Jaffe is a Type Media Center Fellow and an independent journalist covering the politics of power, from the workplace to the streets. She is the author of Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone and Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the American Prospect, and many other publications. She is the cohost, with Michelle Chen, of Dissent magazine's Belabored podcast, as well as a columnist at The Progressive and New Labor Forum.

Our chair:

Emily Kenway is a writer, activist and former policy advisor. Her first book, The Truth About Modern Slavery, was published in 2021. She has written for a variety of publications including the Guardian, Independent, OpenDemocracy, Huffington Post, Litro and TLS. Her non-fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and in 2020 she was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize. Who Cares, her second book, was published in April 2023.