A singular writer and thinker, Rebecca Solnit celebrates the unpredictable and incalculable events that so often redeem our lives both solitary and public. She searches for the hidden, transformative histories inside events we chronicle merely as disasters, in places like post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. She writes that, so often, “when all the ordinary divides and patterns are shattered, people step up to become their brothers’ keepers. And that purposefulness and connectedness bring joy even amidst death, chaos, fear, and loss.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Rebecca Solnit — Falling Together.” Find more at onbeing.org.