Ru Freeman's Blog, page 2

I am over at the New York Times Book Review writing about Anuk Arudpragasam’s debut novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage. You can read the full review here.

Here is the opening:

War is a constant wellspring of literature, and the best of it looks not for the obvious and sensationally violent, but instead searches for the subtle ways that life unfolds regardless. While Sri Lankans writing in Sinhala and Tamil have long borne nuanced witness to the country’s three decades of civil war, writing in English has been much slower to respond. And too much of it has taken the easy route, giving a foreign readership what it desires: a voyeuristic, and ultimately unengaged, affirmation of what it believes is true of savage peoples in other countries.

Thursday, October 26th, 2017

Noon – 1 pm

University of Houston/Victoria

Alcorn Auditorium

Friday, October 6th, 2017

6pm

Brookline Booksmith

279 Harvard St, Brookline, Massachusetts 02446

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of Palestine Festival of Literature, This is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems, and sketches from some of the world’s most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and hope in the most desperate of situations.

Contributors Teju Cole Teju Cole (Known and Strange Things), and Ru Freeman will be in conversation with Tom Hallock, Associate Publisher of Beacon Press, and Khury Petersen-Smith, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mellon Sawyer Seminar in Comparative Global Humanities at Tufts University.

Over there on Huffington Post taking about the elections. You can read the full article here. Below, a taste.

Affecting change takes time and diligence and real effort. It takes discipline and thoughtfulness and a full on commitment to holding feet to fires and noses to grindstones. It doesn’t come from signing a single letter of protest or hootin’ and hollerin’ during a passing primary season. It doesn’t come at the hands of one Black man or a single White woman. For the first time in history, Bernie Sanders has transformed the political conversation so that we have a fighting chance to forge a movement that can effectively become a third party. This primary can be seen as the harbinger of change that can bring American democracy from the darkness into the light of widespread civic engagement and real choice, but only if we do our part. Only if we aren’t distracted by bemoaning what we have allowed to come to pass with a President Trump, floundering in regret at our own foolishness like the Brexit voters who, in the land of the Bard no less, do not even known enough to blame the stars.

Wednesday, October 11th, 2017

7-8.30pm

Ulrich Recital Hall

University of Maryland, College Park

Writers Here & Now Series with Ellen Bryant Voigt

Info: Lindsay Bernal ([email protected])

Tuesday, September 19th, 2017

7.30 pm

Tales of Two Americas:

Stories of Inequality From A Divided Nation

Greenlight Bookstore

586  Fulton Street

Brooklyn, NY

John Freeman in conversation with Lawrence Joseph, Kirsten Valdez-Quade & Jess Rulifson

Wednesday, September 21st, 2016

Lannan Readings & Conversations Series

with John Freeman

Details: TBA

Thursday, September 24th, 2016

Toronto Palestine Film Festival

Panel on BDS & The Arts

Details: TBA

Thursday, October 6th, 2016

11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Society of the Arts

Luncheon with Authors

Lehigh Country Club

2319 S. Cedar Crest Boulevard

Allentown, PA 18103

With Bill Clegg (Did You Ever Have a Family), and Natalie Harnett (The Hollow Ground)

Friday, October 21st, 2016

Speaker Series

Fresno State University

Department of English

5245 N. Backer Avenue

Fresno, CA 93740

Details: TBA