A Nonfiction Reading by Mohamed Asem
Lewis & Clark - Frank Manor House 0615 SW Palatine Hill Road, Portland, OR, United StatesMohamed Asem - July, 2016: Three days after the terror attack on Bastille Day, Mohamed Asem is detained overnight by British immigration officials without cause. In an elegantly digressive, self-interrogative style, Asem describes the boredom and uncertainty of confinement, and how this specific kind of helplessness leads, inevitably, to a self-reckoning. What series of events has led to this moment? Stranger in the Pen examines the burden of being disconnected from one’s homeland, unpacks the emotional toll of racial profiling, and illuminates the quietly surprising ways in which grief can change one’s life. Asem will appear in conversation with his publisher, Michael Heald, of Perfect Day Publishing.