In this episode (in English), I meet Jean Hegland, an American writer best known for her novel Into the Forest, published in 1996 (French: Dans la forêt (2018)). In this climate fiction story, Jean depicts a society collapsing as natural resources become depleted, long before climate change became as urgent a concern as it is today. Last year, she published a sequel to the story, Le temps d’après (2025). Interestingly, the book was first published in French translation. In this podcast, we discuss the importance of telling stories about environmental change and the social causes connected to it. We also explore adolescence as a transformative stage of life, one that holds particular potential for reshaping our ways of understanding and relating to the world.
References cited in this podcast:
Jean Hegland, Dans la forêt, Gallmeister, Paris, 2018.
Jean Hegland, Le temps d’après, Gallmeister, Paros, 2025.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Service Berry, Simon + Schuster LLC, New York City, 2024.
Propositions from Jean Hegland for further podcasts (sent a posteriori):
Corinne Morel Darleux, a French ecofeminist, political activist, and author writing about human-nature relationships.
Susan Gaines, a writer addressing climate change and co-founder of the Fiction Meets Science research centre at the University of Bremen.