Stories Matter

Let's dive into the power of storytelling and explore how our personal narratives shape our world in unexpected ways.

Carl Erik Fisher is an addiction physician, bioethicist, person in recovery, and author of The Urge: Our History of Addiction, named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker and The Boston Globe. As an associate professor at Columbia University, he draws from his academic studies, clinical work, and personal experience to explore addiction, self-control, and flourishing at the Substack newsletter Rat Park.

Susana Moreira Marques is one of Portugal’s most acclaimed authors, with her book Now and at the Hour of Our Death, being the Book of the Year in the New York Times. As a journalist, she worked for the BBC World Service, Público, Jornal de Negócios, Antena 1 and won several prizes, including the UNESCO Human Rights and Integration Journalism Award (Portugal).

A conversation about suffering, compassion, and the healing power of stories!

Drawing on their respective work across psychiatry, end of life, and personal experience of addiction, Carl and Susana reflect on how narrating stories of illness can help people make sense of pain, reclaim dignity, and resist being reduced to a diagnosis.

Moving across medicine, literature, and personal history, the discussion asks what stories can offer when control fails, cure is impossible and listening becomes essential.