Town Hall Seattle and Known Wishes present
Known Wishes: First Steps to Putting Affairs in Order
Building an End-of-Life Plan
Town Hall Seattle presents
Hernan Diaz with Aleenah Ansari
Ply: A Novel
EVENT NOTES
Doors for this event will open at 6:30 PM. Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.
While we may have the perception that we control our own humanity, our relationship with others, and with ourselves, we are often blind to the guiding hand of the state in which we live. Government, society, and technology all exert influence over the way we relate to the outside world to the extent that imagining humanity in the face of a collapsing empire requires a truly radical imagination. How might we address the alienation and division that we have been forced to internalize for so long?
These are the subjects that Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Hernan Diaz, addresses in his new book, Ply. Turning toward the future, Ply examines the place of technology in the American imagination. The story takes place centuries from now, at the dawn of a historical epoch filled with both uncertainty and promise. An orphan is adrift in a city on the brink of a great transformation. The state has been dismantled, and humans are reinventing social bonds and learning new ways to coexist with nature. Following a childhood defined by loss, survival, and found family, the orphan grows up to become a “pincher,” a person who steals electricity from the grid to sell it on the black market. This high-risk lifestyle brings her into a rich art and music scene where she powers underground concerts, leading her to formulate a scientific invention that could change the fabric of reality.
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Hernan Diaz works to defy expectations, questioning the place of technology in the American experiment. Ply combines Dickensian odyssey, family drama, and scientific thriller, charting the tenuous boundaries of selfhood and the distance that inevitably stands between us and those we love.
Join us in the Forum at Town Hall Seattle for a thoughtful and relevant conversation around empire, the ways the state impacts our humanity and connection, and what happens when that empire falls.
Hernan Diaz is the Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times bestselling author of Trust, one of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the Century. His previous novel, In the Distance, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Kirkus Prize, a Whiting Award, and a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages.
Aleenah Ansari (she/her) is a Seattle-based writer and creative strategist covering travel, wellness, non-linear career paths of entrepreneurs, and representation in media. Her writing has been featured in Insider, The Seattle Times, Joysauce, University of Washington Magazine, and more. She also coaches people on creating opportunities through pitching, overcoming the fear of pressing “publish,” and building an authentic personal brand. Learn more at www.aleenahansari.com.
Presented by Town Hall Seattle.
Events are offered for informational, entertainment, and educational purposes only. Read Town Hall’s Program Content Policy.
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