Hi, I'm Lovar Burton and this is Lovar Burton Reads.

In every episode I hand-pick a different piece of short fiction and I read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will too.

Well y'all, today's story is by the author Anjali Sachdevah and it's really that much

richer for knowing a bit about why she wrote it.

It's from her collection entitled All the Names They Used For God.

I love that title and it was inspired by one of her college professors, Leslie Brissmann,

and a class that Anjali took about the English poet and activist, John Milton.

Now, if you only know one or two things about Milton, they're probably A, that he wrote

Paradise Lost and B, that he became blind.

Milton was born in 1608 and made a career for himself as a pamphleteer and a political

activist, writing about freedom of expression and the rights of peoples to hold their rulers

accountable for their actions.

He was an extremely devout Christian and even studied to be an Anglican priest in his youth

and he agonized over how best to use his talents to serve his God and he claimed that his

great work, Paradise Lost, was divinely inspired and written with the help of a muse.

Paradise Lost tells the story of Lucifer, essentially God's top angel who becomes jealous

that Jesus is made the Messiah.

Now Lucifer leads a revolt against God and loses and is consequently sent along with all

of his followers to hell.

And then it tells the story of Adam and he used temptation and therefore from Paradise.

An Anjali's story she has us visit the elderly Milton as he works with his muse to write

...