Page 10 - Ling Ma News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

A pandemic is no new phenomenon. When COVID-19 hit last year, aside from the practical health guidelines, the average person had no idea how to deal with something of this magnitude.  Then came contemplation on previous global health crises and the chilling idea of a plague as explored in literature. Book recommendation lists started floating around as the quarantine bound us to our homes, with titles like, “The 20 Best Pandemic Books to Read During Coronavirus” and “Eerily prescient 2020 plague novels.” Like many people, I was reluctant to indulge my fears and sadness ...

I read Ling Ma’s Severance in December 2019, just weeks before COVID-19 emerged in China. If you’re not familiar, the novel surrounds Candance Chen, a young woman who lives and works in New York when Shen Fever strikes. This fictional virus renders people zombie-like, turning them into shells of their past selves. The afflicted are trapped in a loop enacting daily tasks in mindless repetition until they die. There is no cure, and the virus sweeps the globe in a slow-moving apocalypse. “The End begins before you are ever aware of it,” the first chapter opens. As I read those words in ...