The Unflinching Empathy I Learned as a Novelist Is What the World Needs

Unflinching empathy, which is the muscle the lesson is designed to exercise, is a prerequisite for literature strong enough to wrestle with the real world. On the page it allows us to spot signs of humanity; off the page it can teach us to start a conversation with the strangest of strangers, to thrive alongside difference. It can even affect those life or death choices we make instinctively in a crisis. This kind of empathy has nothing to do with being nice — and it’s not for the faint of heart… Read in the New York Times >