The Basilisk — Paul Kingsnorth

We commissioned four authors to approach the theme of apocalypse through fiction, from the perspectives of past, present, and future. Our third installment, The Basilisk, is from Paul Kingsnorth, a writer and poet living in rural Ireland. Paul is the author of the novels The Wake and Beast, the essay collection Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist, and his latest book of nonfiction, Savage Gods. Narrated by Paul, The Basilisk is an exchange of letters between an uncle and a niece. In it, Paul imagines how two members of a family might respond to our addiction to technology as they divulge their thoughts about the otherworld, possession, and fatal temptation.