Liz Jensen on learning to love life again after devastating loss

The Shift with Sam Baker

CONTENT WARNING: There are many moments of joy in this conversation, but please be aware that Liz talks candidly about grief and the sudden death of her son, which some listeners may find upsetting.

My guest today is the writer and climate activist Liz Jensen. Half Danish and half-anglo Moroccan, Liz started out as a journalist, working in radio before becoming a BBC producer. Then, Liz turned her hand to novels. She has now written nine, perhaps the best known of which is The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, which was turned into a movie starring Jamie Dornan.

Now she has written memoir, one no-one would ever want to write.

Your Wild and Precious Life, is, at its heart the devastating story of the nine months after her youngest son Raphael died suddenly at the age of 25. Raph was a zoologist and climate activist, and this is also the story of Liz’s own awakening.

She is a founder of Extinction Rebellion Writers Rebel, which combines words and action to highlight the climate and ecological emergency.

Liz joined me to talk about surviving the loss of a child, translating grief into hope and opening herself up to the natural world. We also discussed magical thinking, the concept of kairos, the unexpected solace of being part of the terrible club and why she used to want to marry an ape!

A note: The episode of The Shift Liz and I discuss in the first five minutes is my conversation with 103-year-old Dr Gladys McGarey, you can listen to it here.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Your Wild and Precious Life by Liz Jensen and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com

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