Daily: Why DEATH should be a party

When writer Erica Buist had the traumatic experience of finding her partner’s father dead in his home, it led her to ask why we respond to death with fear and sadness – and ultimately to travel from Mexico to Nepal and beyond to research the surprisingly uplifting book This Party's Dead: Grief, Joy And Spilled Rum At The World's Death Festivals.

She talks to Arthur Snell about greeting the dead and dancing with corpses, feasts where dead bodies are “invited to the party”, the true meaning of Voldemort… and why Westerners need to get over the idea that talking about death is “rude”.

• “We leave this incredibly important thing to your highest moment of trauma. Why would you do that?”
• “I got hit on the head with a corpse at one of these festivals. They were dancing with it…”
• “We’re happy to look at the blue corpse of a girl in a movie, but somehow not in real life.”
• “In the West, when you die you lose your powers. But in a lot of these cultures, death is where you GAIN your power.”
• “Hanging out with a dead body sounds bizarre. But after a couple of minutes, it’s so normal.”
• “The idea that teaching kids about death will traumatise them? No. Kids LOVE death. It’s their favourite.”

Presented by Arthur Snell. Produced Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production

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