4 sessions, 7-8:30 pm:
September 22, 2022
October 20, 2022
November 17, 2022
December 15, 2022
Fee: Free.
Registration: This discussion takes place via Zoom; advance registration required. Click here to register.
The Lynden/HOME Refugee Steering Committee book discussion group, moderated by Lynden’s Kim Khaira, is for those interested in firsthand accounts of displacement. We consider works of non-fiction and fiction, including autobiographical and semi-autobiographical works, by writers who have faced or are facing forced displacement as refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants. Where stories of persecution, historical trauma, and loss of livelihood are effortlessly conveyed by storytellers, journalists, and humanitarians who search out or stumble upon the lives of refugees, we seek out the words of those to whom these stories belong: the narrators who are the closest to their own stories, and the stories of their people, friends, family and, of course, refugees. In September, we will be embarking on a new book, Sonya Bilocerkowycz’s On Our Way Home from the Revolution: Reflections on Ukraine. Newcomers welcome!
On Our Way Home from the Revolution is a collection of essays within the genre of creative nonfiction written by someone who is both an insider and an outsider. Bilocerkowycz begins in the U.S. by describing the personal experiences of her grandmother and other elders as war refugees, using these observations to define heritage and patriotism. Her perspective shifts when a teaching opportunity arises in Ukraine and she begins to travel the country, searching for her own identity.
Sonya Bilocerkowycz is a Ukrainian-American writer from the Black Hills of South Dakota. She has served as a Fulbright grantee in Belarus. She is a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow.
We encourage you to read each section in advance (see information below on acquiring the current book). Then join us for a virtual discussion moderated by Lynden’s Kim Khaira. The group meets monthly, and we seek the input of group members on titles to consider in the future.
As part of our HOME work at Lynden, we are making the book available without charge to book discussion group participants. If you would like us to purchase a copy of the book for you, please indicate this when completing the registration form. We will contact you when the book is available and you will be able to pick it up at the Lynden Sculpture Garden, 2145 West Brown Deer Road, Milwaukee, WI 53217.
PREVIOUS READINGS
Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You January-February, 2021
Kao Kalia Yang's Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir March-May, 2021
Emmanuel Mbolela's Refugee: A Memoir June-August, 2021
The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, Edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen, September-December, 2021
Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Admiring Silence January- April, 2022
Homeira Qaderi’s Dancing in the Mosque May-August, 2022