Episode 26: Sigrid Nunez discusses her new novel, <em>What Are You Going Through</em>, about the toughest thing you could ever ask of a friend

Photo Credit: Nancy Crampton

It was a joy to speak this week with Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend, about her latest novel, What Are You Going Through? When a woman dying of cancer asks her friend to be there when she ends her life it raises moral and ethical questions about euthanasia and the boundaries of friendship. Sigrid and I talked about some big issues - the importance of kindness and empathy, dying a good death, the inadequacy of language in the face of human suffering. We also discussed the role of the writer in these challenging times – is it to uplift readers?