Click here to download the reading guide.
Fee: Free.
Registration: This discussion takes place via Zoom; advance registration required. Click here to register.
Lynden and the HOME Refugee Steering Committee begin the new year by launching a book discussion group for those interested in firsthand accounts of displacement. We will consider works of non-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.
We encourage you to read each book in advance (see information below on acquiring the current selection). Then join us for a virtual discussion moderated by Lynden’s Kim Khaira. We expect the group to meet bimonthly, and we will be seeking the input of group members on titles to consider in the future.
We continue the series with Kao Kalia Yang's Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir. Yang, a well-known and enigmatic storyteller and a Hmong refugee herself, portrays the experiences of refugees resettled to the Twin Cities in a collection of stories. This collective refugee memoir covers cultural, political, and personal commentary, and the journey that brings refugees from their country of origin, from Cambodia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia or Russia, to Minnesota, the highest number of refugees per capita in the United States.
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. Books must be requested no later than April 1. We will contact you when the book is available and you will be able to pick it up at Boswell Book Company, 2559 N. Downer Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53211.
If you prefer to support your local public library by borrowing the book, you can find Milwaukee County libraries here or other local libraries here. If you would like to purchase the book yourself, Boswell Books will be offering it at a 10% discount to book group participants. The book can be purchased at the store (you will find it among the book club selections) or on the Boswell website with the 10% book club discount already applied. Here is the link to purchase via Boswell: https://www.boswellbooks.com/book/9781250296856. Please check Boswell’s website to check the availability of the book, and to confirm hours and delivery options.
PREVIOUS READINGS
Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You
January/February 2021 - Reading Guide
Fee: $20/$15 members
