"I was in bed scrolling on my phone when I read the headline: Hot mic catches Xi and Putin discussing organ transplants and immortality. It took me a long time to get to sleep after that. Not yet, I thought. I pride myself on my prescience, but I wasn't ready for the future I had imagined to arrive so soon. Since 2017, I've been thinking about the implications of longevity research, sketching out possible futures the shifts in society, the complications and subcultures."
"This year I published the result of my thought experiment, Who Wants to Live Forever, a speculative literary novel. It follows Yuki and Sam, a couple at a crossroads at the same time that a new drug, called Yareta which extends the human lifespan by 200 years and preserves youth becomes available. Sam takes it, Yuki doesn't, and the novel follows the fallout as the world changes around them. The story ends in 2039."
A speculative novel follows a couple, Yuki and Sam, when a drug called Yareta appears that extends human lifespan by 200 years and preserves youth. Sam accepts the drug while Yuki refuses, and the narrative traces personal fallout alongside broad societal shifts through 2039. Massive investments from wealthy tech figures and interest from autocratic leaders accelerate longevity research, making extended lifespans an urgent political and ethical problem. The pursuit of immortality by powerful figures raises fears about concentrated power, grotesque practices for anti‑ageing, and the uneven distribution of future technologies.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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