As our world is transformed by the coronavirus pandemic, writers offer a powerful antidote to the fearful confines of isolation: a window onto lives and corners of the world beyond our own. Join And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again contributors via Crowdcast for a free virtual talk about our new anthology of literary dispatches from life during the pandemic. Ana Simo (France), Khalid Albaih (Sudan), Majed Abusalama (Palestine), and Nadia Christidi (Lebanon) will talk about life and art in a transformed world, moderated by Ilan Stavans.
And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again takes its title from the last line of Dante’s Inferno, when the poet and his guide emerge from hell to once again behold the beauty of the heavens. In that spirit, the stories, essays, poems, and artwork in this collection detail the harrowing experiences of life in the pandemic, while pointing toward a less isolated future. A portion of proceeds will go to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, which helps the passionate booksellers get back on their feet after the lockdown.
This event is hosted by The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn. Purchase And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again from The Center for Fiction.
When: Tuesday, September 15, 2020 at 1 pm
Where: The Center for Fiction via Crowdcast
Ana Simo is the author of a dozen plays, a short feature film, and countless articles. A New Yorker most of her life, she was born and raised in Cuba. Forced to leave the island during the political/homophobic witch-hunts of the late 1960s, she first immigrated to France, where she studied with Roland Barthes and participated in early women’s and gay/lesbian rights groups. In New York next, she co-founded Medusa’s Revenge theatre, the direct action group the Lesbian Avengers, the national cable program Dyke TV, and the groundbreaking The Gully online magazine, offering queer views on everything. Heartland, her first novel, was published by Restless Books in 2018. It was a finalist for the 2019 Triangle Lit Awards for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction.
Romanian-born and Qatari-raised, Sudanese artist and political cartoonist Khalid Albaih is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he is the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) PEN Artist-in- Residence. His cartoons have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, NPR, and the BBC. His commentary is published in the Guardian, CNN, and Al Jazeera.
Born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, Majed Abusalama is an award-winning journalist, scholar, and human rights activist. His articles are regularly featured in Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, Deutsche Welle, BABelmed, and Al Jazeera, among others. On the board of We Are Not Numbers, co-founder of Palestine Speaks Coalition in Germany, and the Hebrew website www.border-gone.com, he lives in Berlin.
Nadia Christidi is a researcher, writer, and arts practitioner based between Cambridge, MA and Beirut, Lebanon. Nadia is currently a PhD candidate in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society at MIT, where she studies how cities that face water supply challenges, which are expected to intensify with climate change, are imagining, planning, and preparing for the future of water. The cites she focuses on are Los Angeles, Dubai, and Cape Town. Her work has been exhibited at Beirut Art Center, SALT Galata (Istanbul), and SALT Ulus (Ankara), and published by ArteEast and ArtAsiaPacific.
About the Book
Also by Ana Simo
Edited by Ilan Stavans
In this rich, eye-opening, and uplifting anthology, dozens of esteemed writers, poets, artists, and translators from more than thirty countries send literary dispatches from life during the pandemic. A portion of proceeds benefit booksellers in need.
World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translation of 2020
Paperback • ISBN: 9781632063021
Publication date: Aug 25, 2020