4 sessions:
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Thursday, October 21, 2021
Thursday, November 18, 2021
Thursday, December 16, 2021
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 monthly, and we will be seeking the input of group members on titles to consider in the future.
We continue the series with The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives (2018), a book of essays edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American novelist and professor who, as a child, fled Vietnam with his family in 1975 after the fall of Saigon. In The Displaced, Nguyen highlights 17 refugee writers across the globe, including authors previously covered in the HOME discussion group such as Dina Nayeri and Kao Kalia Yang. Unlike Yang’s collective memoir Somewhere in the Unknown World, The Displaced offers direct narrative and words by refugees who are themselves writers and novelists. The Displaced, as a well-curated collection of essays, has been deemed thought-provoking, unapologetic, and yet another essential and timely piece of literature on refugee issues.
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.
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. We will post that link as soon as we have it. 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
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
Fee: $16/$12 members for one adult and one child.
