Join Busboys and Poets Books as we welcome author Wendy Pearlman in conversation with Shiyam Galyon, to discuss Pearlman's new book We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians who have survived the uprising and the aftermath.
Wendy Pearlman is a professor and award-winning teacher at Northwestern University, specializing in Middle East politics. Educated at Harvard, Georgetown, and Brown, Pearlman speaks fluent Arabic and has spent more than twenty years studying and living in the Arab World. She is the author of numerous articles and two books, Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada(Nation Books, 2003) and Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2011). She lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Shiyam Galyon is a Syrian-American writer and community activist currently working on creating scholarships for displaced students through the Books Not Bombs campaign. She has written for Warscapes, Al Jazeera America, and BRIGHT and holds a BS in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin.Â
This event is sponsored by The Syrian Cultural House. They are a nonprofit based in the Greater Washington, D.C. area, that aims to conserve and promote Syrian heritage and culture; build cultural and social bridges with local communities and the American public; and support the acclimation of newly-arrived Syrian emigrants, asylee, and refugees. They have hosted events from a Damascene Ramadan Tent to monthly film screenings to the Flavors of Syria cultural celebration, and more. Feel free to check out their website at www.syrianculturalhouse.org.Â
