Cuma's Voice: An Environmental Utopia

About the Book

Have you ever dreamt about living in a perfect world? How would it be different from the world in which you now live? How would you want to spend most of your time? How would your relationships with other people change? How would government, schooling, and employment be different? Would you want to live a longer life? Would you want a different type of body?

In Cuma’s Voice: An Environmental Utopia, writer William Young imagines a utopian world that might have evolved on Earth had human society not developed along technological lines. He describes a world based on the principles of peace, happiness, equality, and environmental sustainability. The novel features sixteen conversations between Cynthia, a middle-aged engineer who works the night shift at a radio station, and Cuma, who lives in a utopian rain forest on a distant planet. The conversations examine attitudes about the environment, social structures, education, religion, and human conflict. In the process, the dialogues raise important questions about the meaning of both sustainability and progress.

According to Young, utopian writers have two main options when imagining a perfect world: they can take the current world as a given and suggest ways to improve it, or they can imagine a world that is fundamentally different from the one in which we now live. According to Young: "The problem with the first approach is that many entrenched practices in the current world make utopia impossible - you cannot expect to build a sturdy house on a dilapidated foundation. Some of the early utopian writings of Plato and Thomas More accepted the existing societal practices, and their utopias feature slavery and warfare. I attempt to identify and confront the problems with the foundation, which is why my novel employs the second approach."

Young, who lives in Northern Virginia, has traveled extensively throughout the world to study birds and natural history. His favorite destination is Australia, which he has visited four times. He said: "Australia´s vegetation and wildlife is significantly unlike what is found in the United States. When you observe an ecosystem that is very different, you can gain important perspectives and understanding on the flora and fauna where you live. I built on this concept when I wrote my novel. By presenting a world that is significantly unlike Western industrialized society, I hope readers of Cuma´s Voice: An Environmental Utopia will gain perspective and understanding about the way we now live. And ideally, such new understanding might inspire people to develop ways of improving the quality of our lives."

To read an interview with William Young, click on his name near the top of this page.

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William Young creates a faraway world that helps us to better understand our own. He suggests that the best models for human progress might be found in nature among life forms with which we already are familiar. He envisions a...

     World without slaughter
     Of all that lives better than
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About the Author

Many utopian writers have dreamt about an ideal future resulting from new and better technologies. Cuma’s Voice: An Environmental Utopia contrasts urban life in 21st Century America with an existence that might have evolved on Earth had human society not developed along technological lines. Conversations between Cuma and Cynthia examine attitudes about the environment, social structures, education, religion, and human conflict. In the process, the dialogues raise important questions about the meaning of both sustainability and progress. William Young creates a faraway world that helps us to better understand our own. He suggests that the best models for human progress might be found in nature among life forms with which we already are familiar. He envisions a… World without slaughter Of all that lives better than We...world without men Logical and lovable, Strange, unearthly, yet of earth... An enchanted forest. Michael Zuckerman Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania Author of Peaceable Kingdoms