On Time and Water: Andri Snær Magnason at TIFA
In the next 100 years, the nature of all water on this planet will undergo fundamental change. The power of storytelling is crucial in this time of climate crisis, as the Earth’s tipping point looms before us. Andri Snær Magnason, one of Iceland’s most beloved writers, documentary filmmakers and public intellectuals, presents On Time and Water, a film response to his book of the same name (translated to English by Lytton Smith). Magnason was moved to create the work when a scientist posed this question: “If you cannot understand our scientific findings and present them in an emotional, psychological, poetic or mythological context, then no one will really understand the issue, and the world will end.”
Join the author and documentary filmmaker, along with musician Högni Eggilsson, as they present a rich and compelling performance of music, science, memories and images that collectively illustrates the reality of climate change—and offers hope in the face of an uncertain future. The event will take place on Wednesday, October 27 at 8:30PM EDT.
Register here!
ABOUT ON TIME AND WATER
A few years ago, Andri Snær Magnason, one of Iceland’s most beloved writers and public intellectuals, was asked by a leading climate scientist why he wasn’t writing about the greatest crisis mankind has faced. Magnason demurred: he wasn’t a specialist, he said; it wasn’t his field. But the scientist persisted: “If you cannot understand our scientific findings and present them in an emotional, psychological, poetic or mythological context,” he told him, “then no one will really understand the issue, and the world will end.”
Based on interviews and advice from leading glacial, ocean, climate, and geographical scientists, and interwoven with personal, historical, and mythological stories, Magnason’s response is a rich and compelling work of narrative nonfiction that illustrates the reality of climate change—and offers hope in the face of an uncertain future. Moving from reflections on how one writes an obituary for an iceberg to exhortation for a heightened understanding of human time and our obligations to one another, throughout history and across the globe, On Time and Water is both deeply personal and globally-minded: a travel story, a world history, and a desperate plea to live in harmony with future generations. Already a massive bestseller in Iceland, and selling in two dozen territories around the world, this is a book unlike anything that has yet been published on the current climate emergency.
ABOUT ANDRI SNÆR MAGNASON
Andri Snær Magnason is one of Iceland’s most celebrated writers. He has won the Icelandic Literary Prize for fiction, children’s fiction, and non-fiction. In 2009, Magnason co-directed the documentary Dreamland, which was based on his book Dreamland: A Self-Help Manual for a Frightened Nation (forthcoming from Open Letter). In 2010, Magnason was awarded the Kairos Prize, presented to outstanding individuals in the field of intercultural understanding. Magnason ran for president of Iceland in 2016 and came third out of nine candidates.
Get your copy of On Time and Water from Biblioasis here!
