A Door Into Ocean

“Share the Day” — this is a translation of a greeting from the ocean world of Shora, which was a world created by Joan Slonczewski. She’s a science fiction writer and professor at Kenyon College. This is from her 1986 novel “A Door into Ocean.” The book describes a society of people who are committed to nonviolence at a very, very deep level — and not just an emotional, sentimental kind of “do no harm” nonviolence, but one that is a really deeply transformed view of what it means to be human. And with that, what’s really at stake when we turn to or away from the nonviolent path.

I became so engrossed with this novel because it was more than a book to me. It was the exploration of possibility, a look at what a novel can really do. It’s a glimpse at what nonviolent — not to mention feminist literature — can look like, but also what it means to imagine nonviolent resistance before it happens.

I reached out to Slonczewski for an interview for Nonviolence Radio, and I’m happy to say that she accepted.

Transcript archived at Waging Nonviolence