And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again by Ilan Stavans

He then transitioned to ask the other three speakers, “What does the word ‘crisis’ mean to you now? How are you experiencing this moment?”

Now, I find myself being arguably close to a banana republic in the very place that has been critical of banana republics,” he said. “I am on the other side of the border in a country, the United States, where I thought the democratic institutions were solid, where political transitions were respected and respectable. I don’t remember, at any point in my life, however, being in a crisis like the one we are right now,” Stavans said.Īnd he was not simply referring to the pandemic. “I used to think that the word crisis had been diluted … that the word no longer has any meaning. Stavans, who is Mexican American, began the discussion by questioning how he conceptualizes the idea of a crisis.

The authors had incredibly valuable and diverse insights, ranging from the role of imperialism in language to the burdens of being labeled an immigrant writer. It is edited by Stavans, who is the publisher of Restless Books, a professor at Amherst College and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Kareem, a poet and a Best Translated Book Award nominee, and Tufts alumna and author of New York Times Editor’s Choice “The Body Papers” (2019) Talusan (LA’94) both contributed to “And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again” (2020) - an anthology of works describing how lives have been transformed by COVID-19. Unnikrishnan is a writer from Abu Dhabi, whose book “Temporary People” (2017) won the inaugural Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, the 2017 Hindu Literary Prize and the 2018 Moore Prize. 11, Brookline Booksmith hosted “Immigrant Writing in a Time of Crisis,” a conversation with Mona Kareem, Grace Talusan, Deepak Unnikrishnan and Ilan Stavans.

And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again by Ilan Stavans