Interview: Julia Hauser and Sarnath Banerjee, authors, The Moral Contagion
On their book that explores how societies worldwide responded to plague pandemics from Constantinople in the sixth century to Bombay in the 19th century
You write that the idea for your book came during the onset of Covid-19. How did you decide to draft it as a graphic novel?
Julia Hauser: Sarnath and I met in Germany on the first day of the lockdown. We wondered how the pandemic would unfold and change societies because that’s what earlier pandemics did. For the book, we decided to split roles: I worked on the text and he worked on the images.
However, it’s not a graphic novel because the images and text are separate. We created it as an illustrated book to reach a large, non-academic audience, including young people, to show what pandemics do to societies and what societies do with pandemics. Moreover, the plague’s history is strikingly visual. It’s rich in images and objects we are no longer familiar with, so we wanted people to see those. Another reason is that images can help us jump from the present to the past. Sarnath does this fantastically by introducing anachronisms, among other techniques.
Thanks for clarifying that it’s not a graphic novel. I now remember that the blurb describes it as a graphic narrative.
JH: It’s also not a novel as it doesn’t have a plot or a protagonist you follow throughout the book. But each chapter is a narrative in itself. And together, an overarching narrative emerges. Sometimes, there are minor fictional elements, but largely, it’s non-fiction.
What research did you do for the novel?
Sarnath Banerjee: We had to familiarise ourselves with the periods we were writing about — not just the kings, queens, and heroic parts of the narrative, but also what happened in the peripheries. What was it like to wake up in Constantinople or Hong Kong during the plague? How did waves in the Thames lap up against Samuel Pepys’ boat? What did soothsayers consider as bad omens? The Romans believed that boats with headless rowers and frogs eating snakes were ominous signs. This peripheral stuff is part of the joy of recreating a historian’s imagination.
My job was to create the atmosphere for the different periods we chronicled. And for that, the marginal is important — pottery, architecture, costumes… not just things like people stabbing or killing each other. It required a lot of visual research. Julia is also a photographer and has her own aesthetics and understanding of visuals, so it was easy to work with her.
A lot of the book is factual, though parts rely on historical instinct: a historian’s notion of what could have happened rather than mere speculation. We also used our imagination to create the appropriate costumes, people, and landscapes.
We had decided early on that it should not be a graphic novel, although we’ve used the word and it’s within the genre. It’s an illuminated text, whose history precedes graphic novels.
JH: I’m a modern historian by training — I don’t know much about the Middle Ages, so I had to research the topic more. But my training included some medieval history and my father’s an archaeologist, so it wasn’t entirely unfamiliar terrain.
When I write a book, I usually go to the archives and travel. However, despite the book’s global scope, I didn’t travel as it was often prohibited or risky. I also couldn’t go to physical archives, so I worked with published materials, such as secondary sources and manuscript editions rather than the manuscripts themselves. That helped me concentrate on the storytelling and write leisurely. It was liberating to not have to work on footnotes or refer much to other people’s research, though I do add a list of the works I consulted at the book’s end. I also included characters I couldn’t find in sources because the sources don’t touch upon, say, poor or illiterate people.
SB: When historians introduce a character that does not exist in primary sources, it’s different from a novelistic imagination. It’s more akin to how a detective would piece together a narrative from a crime scene. Writers of historical fiction might take a slice of history and fly with it, but historians are restricted by facts and have a more critical imagination. That is one of the pleasures of working with a historian.
Julia, you write that “the [plague] pandemic would reshape the way [14th-century] Muslim scholars looked at history and thereby shape the discipline of history”. Could you talk more about this?
JH: The famous scholar and politician Ibn Khaldun witnessed the plague in Spain and North Africa in the mid-14th century. He lost many family members, friends, and teachers to the disease when he was only 17. So, it was a formative experience for him.
You can also feel that in his most famous work, the Muqaddimah. While it’s supposed to be a scientific history, the passages about the devastation of societies are quite emotional. He also admits that the chaos caused by the plague made him turn to reading and writing history. Today, he is recognized as one of the founders of history and sociology because he regarded history as the science of human society. More specifically, he’s one of the first scholars to approach global and comparative history scientifically, that is, with causal explanations.
He compares dynasties to human bodies and mortal beings. So, he says that dynasties are susceptible to decay and have a lifespan. That was also a result of the plague. He argues that nomadic society is ideal because it challenges people to be courageous, healthy, frugal, and modest. In the long run, these qualities also favour territorial expansion. However, this comes with the risk of decay because people move to cities, where life is more comfortable, and take to luxuries and refinements. People also live closer together, which helps diseases spread easily. Ultimately, this leads to the decline of kingdoms.
What were the most surprising or interesting aspects of earlier pandemics you came across while working on your book?
JH: I found it interesting that Greek or Arab medicine (since people in Europe learnt about Greek medicine through the Arabs) was dominant for long not just in Europe, but around the world — well into the 19th century. Even some measures taken during Covid-19 can be traced back to its influence.
For instance, Arab physicians advocated that during a plague outbreak, people should go into the street with a piece of fabric covering their mouths and noses. They also warned that objects used by people who died of the plague should not be touched or used again — even an earring could carry the disease.
That surprised me, even though their rationale was different from what we have today. They didn’t know about bacteria and viruses. Instead, there was the idea of humoral pathologies: physicians believed that there were liquids inside the human body that interacted with the outside world and stars.
I also found it surprising that people in Europe relied on panaceas that seem completely obscure to us today. For example, bezoar, a stone or solid substance taken from the intestine of animals, was believed to heal the plague and other illnesses when worn as an amulet.
Another example is theriac, a liquid brewed from flowers, herbs, fruits, seeds, mineral substances, and animal parts. It was first invented in ancient Greece and was manufactured and consumed in Persia, India, and Europe. In the latter, it was called Venetian treacle because the Venetians monopolised the recipe for long. They thought it could help against many grave illnesses, including the plague.
So, people sought to contain globally circulating diseases with globally circulating medicines well before the emergence of vaccines. While vaccines are nowadays considered the first transnational medical initiative against epidemics, there was a global exchange of knowledge even earlier.
Your book highlights some common aspects across pandemics, such as the persecution of minorities and fear of vaccines, while also showcasing what is different, such as modern medicine. What can the history of pandemics tell us about our present?
JH: Pandemics force us to withdraw from society to minimise the risk of contagion. When we’re lonely, it’s easy to give in to one’s fears and irrational impulses.
Moreover, the recurrence of pandemics shows us that they can occur at any time and ‘progress’ (a term I’m hesitant to use as a historian) cannot eliminate all diseases. Along with wars and climate change, we’re still vulnerable to diseases that can spread quickly and devastate societies.
Also, let’s not forget that Covid-19 is still around, even though everyone talks about it as if it’s gone. The plague went on for centuries — whether that will happen with this pandemic, I don’t know.
SB: Covid-19 brought a lot of masks down, especially in terms of caste and class divisions, and how we treat people we have known for years: gardeners, drivers, security guards, peons, etc. Vigilance and suspicion took over housing estates in large cities.
People had to walk with their luggage back to their villages. For many, their village is not a home or sanctuary — it’s a place they’ve left to escape poverty and devastation, and they were forced to return not knowing what the future had in store. If I belonged to that class, I would never trust the middle and upper classes again.
The pandemic also showed that there’s no constitutional public-spiritedness. We learnt how people profit — the optician and kebab seller you had always gone to were suddenly hoarding oxygen cylinders. We understood a lot about governments and their credibility. Grand narratives broke down and we saw a darker side of humanity.
It’s a rather bleak view that affects people’s mental health, but we cannot indulge in it. We have to pull up our socks and continue living productively and creatively.
How was your personal experience of the Covid-19 pandemic? What aspects of earlier pandemics that you explore in your book resonated with your life during Covid-19?
JH: It was not too different from my regular life, though it was more silent. I spent time reading and writing. What struck me was the racism when masks were mandated in Germany. People resisted wearing it because they associated it with East Asia.
I felt the fear, loneliness, and desire to break out that some of the characters have in the book. There was also the regret of public places closing — in the book it’s bathhouses; in our times, it’s gyms, libraries, universities, etc.
I also felt like the historians in the chapter Plague, History and Intrigue in the Arabian West. Chronicling the plague’s history helped me to come to terms with Covid-19. It was a way of making sense of events, diverting oneself, and doing something enjoyable.
SB: It was relaxed in Germany, nothing compared to what India went through. I was not in India when it was going through the most horrible time, but my friends were and I had tremendous anxiety and sleepless nights. Of course, it’s not the same as being there.
Personally, it’s still too early to process how Covid-19 has affected me. However, I teach at many universities and am seeing a change among young people. They have become more socially anxious, have difficulty facing people, and are so self-satisfied that they are not curious about other things or people. I don’t judge them, but it hurts to see a generation so disconnected. The next generation might get to socialise normally, but it’s tragic to see what’s happening to those who finished school or entered college during the pandemic.
Syed Saad Ahmed is a writer and communications professional.
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