The Sunday Magazine with Piya Chattopadhyay

80 million people were displaced worldwide by mid-2020 — and as novelist Omar El Akkad sees it, that number will grow as climate change worsens. He joins Piya Chattopadhyay to discuss his latest novel What Strange Paradise.

Mark Bittman, author of Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, From Sustainable to Suicidal, and Rob Dunn, author of Delicious: The Evolution of Flavor and How it Made Us Human, take us from chimpanzees to Cheetos and unpack the inevitable emergence of the Flamin' Hot Cheeto.

MIT Technology Review reporter Tate Ryan-Mosley tells Piya Chattopadhyay why girls she's spoken with are conflicted about beauty filters and sometimes feel they can't go online without it.

Host Piya Chattophadyay speaks with Natasha Lindstaedt about the G7 summit, Olympian Donovan Bailey about his gold medal win 25 years ago, writer and reporter Lawrence Wright about his new book on the first year of the pandemic in America and former Republican congressman Jeff Flake about Trump's hold on the GOP. Plus, lawyer Dany Assaf reflects on the tragic events in London, Ont.

Looking back 25 years, Donovan Bailey still fixates on the mistakes he made on the track. But there is one thing from 1996 that he wouldn't change: how he spoke out about racism in Canada. 

When COVID-19 first appeared in the US in late January 2020, the country was thought to be among the world's best-positioned to handle a pandemic. But, within a year, nearly 400,000 people would be dead and Donald Trump would be on his way out of office. In his new book, The Plague Year, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Lawrence Wright tells that story. He tells Piya Chattopadhyay about how it reached into every corner of American society and became so much more than a story about a single virus.

Dany Assaf's great-grandfather helped build Canada's first mosque in Edmonton in 1938. Assaf grew up a hockey-loving kid on the prairies and is now a globally recognized lawyer. He recently published a memoir called Say Please and Thank You & Stand in Line: One man's story of what makes Canada special, and how to keep it that way. In this personal essay, he argues that all Canadians need to collectively own the hatred that led to the events in London, Ont., so that we can come out the other side as a stronger, more inclusive nation.

At this week's G7 summit in the U.K., national leaders will discuss everything from biodiversity to governance. But the biggest priority will be bringing an end to the COVID-19 pandemic and "building back better" in its wake. Piya Chattopadhyay is joined by Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor in the Department of Government at the University of Essex, who unpacks what happened at this year's G7 and tells us why it may not be effective enough to tackle the world's biggest problems.

Host Piya Chattophadyay speaks with Bob Joseph and Maurice Switzer about what real reconciliation should look like, chats with NBA All Star Chris Bosh about his new book 'Letters To A Young Athlete', learns about an all-female Kurdish militia that took on ISIS, and discusses what it means to lose a parent with journalist Dan Robson.

The newly-named Hall of Famer joins Piya Chattopadhyay to discuss his book; what he's learned about finding purpose, on and off the court; how to be a leader while staying true to yourself; and why cooking dinner for the family is a must during the playoffs.

Piya Chattopadhyay talks with Bob Joseph and Maurice Switzer about whether we’ve actually reached a moment of national reckoning and what reconciliation should look like for citizens and their governments.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on the extraordinary story of how a women-led Kurdish militia became the world’s greatest hope to defeat the Islamic State

Journalist Dan Robson explores what it means to lose a parent in his new memoir, Measuring Up

Panellists Susan Delacourt, a national columnist for the Toronto Star, and Emilie Nicolas, a columnist for Montreal's Le Devoir, join Piya Chattopadhyay to discuss Quebec's move to amend the constitution, this week's vote in parliament to prevent a pandemic election, and provincial re-opening plans.

Ahead of Tuesday's results for the Governor General's Literary Awards, Billy-Ray Belcourt joins Piya Chattopadhyay to discuss his memoir A History of My Brief Body — which has been nominated for a non-fiction award — and how love and joy can be liberating practices for Indigenous people.

Host Piya Chattopadhyay hosts a political panel with Susan Delacourt and Emilie Nicolas, discusses love and joy as acts of rebellion with Billy-Ray Belcourt, hears from listeners about the cabin/camp/cottage debate, talks heartbreak and poetry with Edward Hirsch, and chats about Indigenous fishing and research with Andrea Reid.

Heartbreak is hardly something we'd go out of our way to seek, but renowned American poet Edward Hirsch argues that it's one of the most important properties of poetry. He says it makes you feel the intensity of grief, and it helps us deal with the times we're inevitably going to have our hearts broken.

Nisga'a biologist and National Geographic explorer Andrea Reid has worked with fishing communities across the globe. But it was an opportunity to learn from her own nation's practices in northern British Columbia that led to her stepping into a new local role: to help run UBC's new Centre for Indigenous Fisheries.

Last week, we dug into the origins of what Canadians call summer getaways with linguist Sali Tagliamonte. This week, listeners from across Canada chime in with their own take on the camp/cabin/cottage debate.

Guest host David Common speaks to Paul Rogers about Palestinian-Israeli peace post-ceasefire, discusses the importance of urban play for kids with Tim Gill, digs into the differences between a cabin, a camp and a cottage with Sali Tagliamonte, chats with rising Québécois literary star Kevin Lambert about his newfound success, and biologist Emily Willingham about her research into animal penises.