Busboys and Poets Books Presents MOTHER OF STRANGERS
Date and Time
Sep 16, 2022 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Sep 16, 2022 6:00 pm
14th & V
With a thriving orange export business, Jaffa had always been a city welcoming to outsiders—the “Mother of Strangers”—where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived peacefully together. This is the backdrop of MOTHER OF STRANGERS, based on the true story of two Jaffa teenagers. Follow the daily lives of Subhi, a fifteen-year-old mechanic, and Shams, the thirteen-year-old student he hopes to marry one day. In this prosperous and cosmopolitan port city, with its bustling markets, cinemas, and cafés on the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, we meet many other unforgettable characters who call Jaffa home.
Things change in April of 1948, once the bombardment of the city begins- shock, panic, and destruction ensues. Jaffa becomes unrecognizable, with neighborhoods flattened, families removed from their homes and separated, and those who remain in constant danger of arrest and incarceration. Most of the population flees eastward to Jordan or by sea to Lebanon in the north or to Egypt and Gaza in the south. Subhi and Shams will never see each other again.
Suad Amiry writes a vivid and devastating account of a seminal moment in the history of the Middle East—the beginning of the end of Palestine and a portrait of a city irrevocably changed. Joining her to discuss this beautiful and haunting novel is Palestinian American poet, writer, and activist Zaina Azzam.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of MOTHER OF STRANGERS will be available for purchase after the event, and there will be a signing. Full dinner service is available throughout the show. Please note that this event will not be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books. Proof of RSVP may be requested on arrival if capacity is reached.
Suad Amiry is a writer and an architect. She is the author of six works of nonfiction, including Sharon and My Mother-in-Law, which was awarded the Viareggio-Versilia International Prize in 2004, and Golda Slept Here, which was awarded the Nonino Risit d’Aur Prize in 2014. Amiry received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and is the founder of the RIWAQ Centre for Architectural Conservation in Ramallah, where she lives.
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. She was selected as the Poet Laureate of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, in April 2022 and serves in this position for three years, from 2022 to 2025. Her chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, was published in 2021 by The Poetry Box, which nominated one of her poems for the Pushcart Prize. Her poetry also appears in a number of literary journals including Pleiades, Mizna, Sukoon, Passager, Gyroscope, Barzakh, Pensive Journal, Split This Rock, Streetlight Magazine, Cutleaf Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Voice Male.
