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.
LIVE FROM CROWDCAST: Miranda Tacchia, ”UNIMPRESSED” w/ Aminder Dhaliwal
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Karl Ove Knausgaard, ”THE MORNING STAR” w/ Brandon Taylor
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Amanda Montell, ”CULTISH” w/ Owin Pierson
LIVE FROM CROWDCAST: Yoon Choi, ”SKINSHIP” w/ Steph Cha
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Richard Lange, ”ROVERS”w/ Jonathan Ames
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Jim Terry, ”COME HOME, INDIO” w/ Ezra Claytan Daniels
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Rosecrans Baldwin, ”EVERYTHING NOW” w/ Charles Yu
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Kristen Arnett, ”WITH TEETH” w/ Esme Weijun Wang
SKYLIT: Joan Nockels Wilson, ”THE BOOK OF TIMOTHY”
SKYLIT: Mariam Rahmani, ”IN CASE OF EMERGENCY” w/ Justin Torres
SKYLIT: Robin J. Hayes, ”LOVE FOR LIBERATION”
SKYLIT: SUMMERTIME: ODES TO LA w/ Carlos López Estrada
SKYLIT: Jon McGregor, ”LEAN FALL STAND” w/ Julia Phillips
SKYLIT: West Moss, ”FLESH & BLOOD” w/ David Ebenbach
SKYLIT: Teresa K. Miller, ”BORDERLINE FORTUNE,” and Amanda Moore, ”REQUEENING”
SKYLIT: Stephen Van Dyck, ”PEOPLE I‘VE MET FROM THE INTERNET”
SKYLIT: Farah Ali, ”PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE” w/ Ahsan Butt
SKYLIT: Molly Peacock, ”FLOWER DIARY” w/ Donna Bailey Nurse
SKYLIT: Jan Beatty, ”AMERICAN BASTARD” w/ Elena Karina Byrne
SKYLIT: Mina Seckin, ”FOUR HUMORS” w/ Hilary Leichter
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