Interview with writer Michelle Min Sterling in “les Rencontres” - CHANEL Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon

Listen to author and critic Erica Wagner in conversation with Michelle Min Sterling, writer of “Camp Zero”, her first novel published by Bragelonne in 2023, in which she imagines a futuristic world confronted with the consequences of climate change. Through this conversation with Erica Wagner, Michelle Min Sterling discusses the origins of her novel and her sources of inspiration, both historical and contemporary, and describes her relationship with the genres of dystopia and utopia in literature. Together, they also evoke the role of women in her story and the way fiction can raise awareness of environmental issues.

As part of the Rendez-vous littéraires rue Cambon [Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon], the podcast "les Rencontres" highlights the birth of a writer in a series imagined by CHANEL and House ambassador and spokesperson Charlotte Casiraghi.

(00:00) Introduction

(00:58) Presentation of Michelle Min Sterling and her novel “Camp Zero” by Erica Wagner

(03:56) On the author’s early vocation as a writer 

(07:28) On the literary genres of dystopia and utopia 

(10:11) On the publication process of her novel

(12:42) Reading an extract of “Camp Zero” by Michelle Min Sterling

(14:46) On the origin of her novel

(17:08) The role of women in her novel

(19:30) The historical and contemporary events that inspired the novel 

(22:37) On the ancestry of the main character

(25:22) On the author’s writing process

(26:56) The influence of her teaching career on her writing process

(28:46) On the reception of the book

(34:14) The power of fiction to raise awareness of environmental issues

(36:42) The ending questionnaire of “les Rencontres”

Michelle Min Sterling, Camp Zero © Atria Books, 2024

 © The Globe and Mail

Camp Zero reads like a chronicle of the present © David Moscrop, 2023 

© The London Times 

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling review by

Houman Barekat © The London Times, 2023

Omar El Akkad, American War, Knopf, 2017

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower © Hachette, 2019

Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam Trilogy, Penguin Random House, 2014

The Dispossessed. Copyright © 1974 by Ursula K. Le Guin. An edition of this book was published in 1974 by Harper & Row, Publishers.

Severance by Ling Ma. Copyright © 2018 by Ling Ma. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All Rights Reserved.