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: Carissa Dorson, "CONVERSATIONS WITH DAD" w/ Aline Smithson
SKYLIT: Ben Percy, "THE NINTH METAL"
SKYLIT: Grace Perry, "THE 2000S MADE ME GAY"
SKYLIT: Liz Brown, "TWILIGHT MAN" w/ Alex Ross
SKYLIT: "Katharine Coles, "THE STRANGER I BECOME"
SKYLIT: Daniel Oppenheimer, "FAR FROM RESPECTABLE"
SKYLIT: Lauren Aguirre, "THE MEMORY THIEF"
SKYLIT: Dahlia Schweitzer, "HAUNTED HOMES"
SKYLIT: Illana Masad, "ALL MY MOTHER'S LOVERS" + Jean Kyoung Frazier, "PIZZA GIRL"
SKYLIT: Anjali Enjeti, "THE PARTED EARTH"
SKYLIT: X LA Poets Group Read
SKYLIT: Sara Sligar, "TAKE ME APART" w/ Steph Cha
SKYLIT: Di Lebowitz, "THE MARKS LEFT ON HER"
SKYLIT: Annie Connole, "THE SPRING" w/ Yumi Sakugawa
SKYLIT: Gail Newman, "BLOOD MEMORY" w/ Amy Uyematsu
SKYLIT: Corey Rosen, "YOUR STORY, WELL TOLD"
SKYLIT: Jaya Saxena, "CRYSTAL CLEAR" w/ Helena Fitzgerald
HANDSELL: Ep. 19, Abigail Paxton, "Storyhouse Bookpub" w/ Lance Morgan
SKYLIT: Sarah Berman, "DON'T CALL IT A CULT" w/ Ashley Ray Harris
SKYLIT: Shaun Slifer and Josh MacPhee, "SO MUCH TO BE ANGRY ABOUT"
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