This is a WILD WITH SARAH WILSON conversation, investigating ideas and practices that can help build our new, life-generating future. We are in a liminal time, between an old world that is no longer holding and a new world - “the what comes next” - that’s yet to emerge. Now is the time to be imagining this future together. If this episode inspires you, please share it with loved ones.
Today’s guest is Ece Temelkuran, a fascism expert, political exile and journalist who first began reporting on the global slide into fascism as a journalist witnessing it happen in her home country, Turkey. In 2016, she was forced into exile and went on to write the bestselling book How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps From Democracy to Authoritarianism that warned the rest of the world just how close it was to the same perilous descent.
In her new book, Nation of Strangers, Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century, Ece argues we are entering “an age of survival” and that we are all about to become exiles of sorts, “unhomed” from our sense of belonging to the world, as authoritarianism rips us from our sense of collective meaning as humans. Pivoting her focus to how we can best move through this moment, she says we need to turn to those who’ve already been exiled (the immigrants, the refugees, the victims of fascism) to learn how to rebuild our “what comes next”.
This is a fascinating thesis and Ece, who lives nomadically between Berlin and Greece, gives us a very raw and vulnerable take on it.
Got questions?
Ece and I will answer questions and respond to your feedback in the comments section. I really want this to be an “emergent” and shared conversation.
About Ece
Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish novelist, political thinker, and public speaker. Her work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, El País, New Statesman, and Der Spiegel.
Show notes
Get your copy of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps From Democracy to Authoritarianism and Nation of Strangers, Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century
You can connect with Ece on Instagram here and on X here.
Remember, you can now watch us live on YouTube!
Sarah xx
