Novelist Porochista Khakpour's family moved to Los Angeles after fleeing the Iranian Revolution, giving up their successes only to be greeted by an alienating culture. Growing up as an immigrant in America means that one has to make one's way through a confusing tangle of conflicting cultures and expectations. And Porochista is pulled between the glitzy culture of Tehrangeles, an enclave of wealthy Iranians and Persians in LA, her own family's modest life and culture, and becoming an assimilated American. Porochista rebels--she bleaches her hair and flees to the East Coast, where she finds her community: other people writing and thinking at the fringes. But, 9/11 happens and with horror, Porochista watches from her apartment window as the towers fall. Extremism and fear of the Middle East rises in the aftermath and then again with the election of Donald Trump. Porochista is forced to finally grapple with what it means to be Middle-Eastern and Iranian, an immigrant, and a refugee in our country today.
Brown Album is a stirring collection of essays, at times humorous and at times profound, drawn from more than a decade of Porochista's work and with new material included. Altogether, it reveals the tolls that immigrant life in this country can take on a person and the joys that life can give.
Khakpour is in conversation with Myriam Gurba, a writer, spoken-word artist, and visual artist.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
SKYLIT: Shy Watson, ”HORROR VACUI”
SKYLIT: Tracy Swinton Bailey, ”FOREVER FREE”
SKYLIT: Jonathan Wells, ”THE SKINNY” w/ David St. John
SKYLIT: James Sie, ”ALL KINDS OF OTHER”
SKYLIT: Darrel J. McLeod, ”PEYAKOW”
SKYLIT: Rafia Zakaria, ”AGAINST WHITE FEMINISM”
SKYLIT: Shugri Said Salh, ”THE LAST NOMAD”
SKYLIT: Camille Roy, ”HONEY MINE” w/ Michelle Tea
SKYLIT: Margret Grebowicz, ”MOUNTAINS AND DESIRE”
SKYLIT: Lucy J Santos, ”HALF LIVES”
SKYLIT: Alix Ohlin, ”WE WANT WHAT WE WANT”
SKYLIT: NYU Poetry Program Reading
SKYLIT: Keenan Norris, "THE CONFESSION OF COPELAND CANE" w/ Tongo Eisen-Martin
SKYLIT: Jon Hale, "THE CHOICE WE FACE" w/ Eddie Cole
SKYLIT: Nawaaz Ahmed, "RADIANT FUGITIVES" w/ Natashia Deón
SKYLIT: Benjamin Hedin, "UNDER THE SPELL" w/ Maaza Mengiste
SKYLIT: Pedro Mairal, "THE WOMAN FROM URUGUAY" w/ Jennifer Croft
SKYLIT: Allyson Brantley, "BREWING A BOYCOTT"
SKYLIT: Marissa Levien, "THE WORLD GIVES WAY"
SKYLIT: Brenda Miller, "A BRAIDED HEART" w/ Susanne Paola Antonetta
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