Marianne Brooker’s Intervals – winner of the 2022 Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize – is both a moving record of a bereaved daughter and a deeply political examination of what makes a good death. Anne Boyer’s Pulitzer-winning The Undying blends memoir with critique, exploring the cancer industry and gendered politics of illness. The two writers talk to Gavin Francis about the radical act of looking what we most fear in the face.