Migration between cultures, countries, and continents has for centuries defined individual life stories and shaped the narratives of human history. Climate change and environmental disasters, genocide and civil war, and political debates and policies have brought renewed attention to real-life stories of migration; in this session, three fiction writers will share work that vividly captures the struggles of rootlessness and the desire for home. Leading off the session will be a presentation by architect, engineer, artist, and Twitter phenom Jonny Sun, whose graphic novel Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur an Aliebn Too follows the adventures of a gentle alien among the animal and plant life of Earth. Joining Sun in conversation are novelists Hala Alyan and Lisa Ko. Alyan is a psychologist and acclaimed poet whose debut novel, Salt Houses, traces the legacy of displacement through the stories of a single Palestinian family in exile since the Six-Day War. Ko, whose debut novel The Leavers won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for socially engaged fiction and is a finalist for the National Book Award, also delves into issues of identity, reinvention, and instability in her story of a mother and son separated by heart-wrenching circumstances. This all-too-relevant session will be hosted by WBUR’s Simón Rios, a newsroom reporter who has covered immigration, business, and the environment.
