George Saunders: Angels, Ghosts and the Moral Imagination

About this episode

George Saunders discusses his novel 'Vigil' and explores themes of death, the afterlife, and the moral imagination in fiction.

What if dying is not an ending, but a moment of radical clarity? In his new novel "Vigil," George Saunders conjures a strange and often comic world of bickering angels visiting a dying, deeply flawed man—debating and waiting to see whether he can face the truth about himself before it’s too late. In this conversation, Steve Paulson talks with Saunders about the evolution of his ideas about death and the possibility of an afterlife. Dying, he says, may be “the ultimate experience of wonder,” and he believes ghost stories can open powerful imaginative spaces for novelists. Saunders reflects on his own Buddhist practice as he considers these life-and-death questions, and he tells us why he thinks fiction is uniquely suited to grappling with complex moral issues and why Tolstoy and Chekhov are his personal sources of inspiration. Saunders is the author of such celebrated books as “Tenth of December,” “Pastoralia,” and the Booker Prize-winning “Lincoln in the Bardo.” His nonfiction book about the great Russian writers is “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.” This interview was recorded at the Central Library in downtown Madison shortly before Saunders spoke at the Wisconsin Book Festival. —…

People in this episode

Host: Steve Paulson

Guest: George Saunders

Topics covered

• death
• afterlife
• moral imagination
• Buddhism
• fiction
• ghost stories
• literature

Keywords

• George Saunders
• Vigil
• death
• moral imagination
• Buddhism
• fiction
• ghost stories
• Tolstoy
• Chekhov

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Wisconsin Book Festival, Wonder Cabinet Productions

Books & works: Vigil, Tenth of December, Lincoln in the Bardo, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

More episodes of Wonder Cabinet

• Rewilding Attention with D. Graham Burnett · May 23, 2026 · 39 min
• Christof Koch on the Cosmic Toad · May 16, 2026 · 31 min
• Why We Need Fairy Tales Now — with Sharon Blackie · May 9, 2026 · 45 min
• Rebecca Henderson: Can Capitalism Save the World It’s Destroying? · May 2, 2026 · 50 min
• Caroline Winterer: Dinosaurs, Deep Time and the American Soul · April 25, 2026 · 37 min
• Mary-Jane Rubenstein: Pantheism and the Godness of Nature · April 18, 2026 · 42 min