Episode 23 - Hanya Yanagihara: The People in Trees - Part 2

In the second part of my nicely noisy conversation with Hanya Yanagihara about her debut novel The People in the Trees, we began by discussing the fictional tribe of Ivu'ivu who may have discovered the secret to extending the natural  human life span. 

This leads to the following topics: 

• Western treatment of the elderly
• 'I would rather be lead off into the jungle than sit in some horrible home for decades'
• sexual rituals and moral relativism
• judging Norton Perina 
• 'People do use being in a naive land, where they're the powerful one, as an excuse for all sorts of bad behaviour that they wouldn't do in their own society
• the morality of sexual tourism
• travel writing and the ethics of travel
• 'I can't think of anything that are moral absolutes in every society'
• children, sexuality and the problems of power
• sex and imperialism
• masculinity, editing and narrative in The People in the Trees
• the neatness of theories