Uploaded September 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas. We honour generosity and high ideals, but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture. Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to?
About the author: Larissa MacFarquhar has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998. Her subjects have included John Ashbery, Barack Obama, and Noam Chomsky, among many others. Previously she was a senior editor at Lingua Franca and an advisory editor at The Paris Review. MacFarquhar lives in New York.
She is one of the judges of this year’s Anne Brown Essay Prize for Scotland.
Sponsored by Purple Box Productions
What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas. We honour generosity and high ideals, but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture. Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to?
About the author: Larissa MacFarquhar has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998. Her subjects have included John Ashbery, Barack Obama, and Noam Chomsky, among many others. Previously she was a senior editor at Lingua Franca and an advisory editor at The Paris Review. MacFarquhar lives in New York.
She is one of the judges of this year’s Anne Brown Essay Prize for Scotland.
Sponsored by Purple Box Productions
![Abi Elphinstone || Everdark || [AGES 7-12]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/F0D4sqTsDVQ/mqdefault.jpg "Abi Elphinstone || Everdark || [AGES 7-12]
A world of magic and adventure awaits. Join Abi Elphinstone as she leads you into a whole new world in her latest title Everdark, the prequel to her mesmerising Unmapped Chronicles series.
It is midnight in Crackledawn - a midnight full of magic. Sea dragons stir in the depths of the ocean, silver whales surface beneath the moon and sand goblins line the shores. Everyone is waiting for the phoenix, the guardian of the kingdoms magic, to rise up from the forests of Everdark. But there is no sign of the phoenix tonight. Can eleven-year-old Smudge and a grumpy monkey called Bartholomew sail beyond the legendary Northswirl to stop the harpy stealing Crackledawns magic, before it’s too late?
Grab your compass, roll down your sail and join the adventure.
SEND YOUR QUESTIONS
You or your teacher can send questions to Abi before or during the event [questions@wigtownbookfestival.com] for a Q&A session at the end of the event.")
