An event co-sponsored by PEN and the NYU Creative Writing Program:

April 25 | At Home in Europe

With Marguerite Abouet, Geert Mak, Zafer Åženocak, Janne Teller, Ilija Trojanow; moderated by Jane Kramer of The New Yorker

When: Wednesday, April 25

Where: Hemmerdinger Hall at NYU: 100 Washington Square East

What time: 3–4:30 p.m.

Over the last decade, Europe has undergone some of the most radical changes in its recent history. These writers take a look at the impact of multiculturalism, migration, and economic and other social shifts, and discuss their implications for the stability of individual countries and the creation of a broader European identity. Ilija Trojanow has undertaken a reverse migration of sorts, leaving Europe to settle in various places in sub-Saharan Africa and then chronicling many of these far-flung corners of the world. Geert Mak is a journalist, historian, and author of the forthcoming In Europe: A Journey Through the Twentieth Century. While working as a macroeconomist for the United Nations, Janne Teller lived in Dar-es-Salaam, Maputo, Brussels, and New York and much of her writing focuses on European and multicultural identity. Zafer Åženocak has written widely on the issues of diversity in Germany, the Turkish diaspora, and the short distances and large fears of a globalizing Europe. Marguerite Abouet left Abidjan, Ivory Coast at the age of 12 to study in France. Her graphic novel Aya details the promising, prosperous period of the 1970s in Ivory Coast.

As always, if anyone can go (I’ll be at work) and can write up a quick review of the event, I’ll be delighted. Also, you’ll want to read my friend Kazim Ali’s galling account of a recent episode on his university campus in this free society of ours.