The work of Naomi Klein has been integral for more than one generation of activists, writers, readers and committed community-members striving for a more just world. The Lighthouse-community is, of course, no exception, and so we're absolutely ecstatic to be able to host the Edinburgh launch of her brand new, urgently needed book Doppleganger!
Having spent the past twenty-five years charting and documenting our politics and culture with incisive best-selling books such as No Logo, The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything, with Doppelganger, Klein takes a more personal turn. Braiding together elements of tragicomic memoir, chilling political reportage, and piercing cultural analysis, she dives deep into what she calls the Mirror World—our destabilised present rife with doubles and confusion. In this alternate world, far-right movements feign solidarity with the working class, AI-generated content blurs the line between genuine and spurious, New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers further scramble our familiar political allegiances, and so many of us project our own carefully curated digital doubles out into the social media sphere. Klein begins this intellectual adventure story by grappling with her own doppelganger— a fellow author and public intellectual whose views are antithetical to Klein’s own, but whose name and public persona are sufficiently similar that many people have confused the two over the years.
This is a book for our age and for all of us; a deadly serious dark comedy which invites us to view our reflections in the looking glass. It’s for anyone who has lost hours down an internet rabbit hole, who wonders why our politics has become so fatally warped, and who wants a way out of our collective vertigo and back to fighting for what really matters.
Join us to celebrate a true great, and a book that arrives at just the right moment, to shine a light and a way forward.
Naomi Klein will be in conversation with Gemma Milne.
As with all Lighthouse events, face masks will be required of all guests except those medically exempt to keep folk as safe as possible and keep this event as accessible as possible to more readers. We remain hugely grateful for your continued support in this and will of course have spare masks for anyone who has forgotten their