“Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel is a novel about the time before and after a swine flu pandemic that kills 99% of the world population.

Even though it’s from 2014 — long before we actually got Covid —, I was amazed about how contemporary it felt. Before the pandemic people use iPhones, the internet and generally do the same things we do now. It seems like not much has changed since the introduction of the internet and smartphones. After the pandemic — which is a lot more devastating than Covid was — all is different. The lights go out and people need to adapt to the new situation.

I won’t dwell on the overarching topic of the novel, though, as it’s not really that important. I’m not really that much interested in novels about pandemics. What made me read this one until the end was the storytelling. The novel keeps switching between the times before and after the pandemic while gradually creating a mesh of relationships between the main protagonists and their actions. It’s interesting to watch it unfold and the pandemic is just a backdrop that adds interesting aspects to the already great story.