Schedule of Events:

May 2, 2025

Forced Journeys: Stories of Home, Displacement, and Belonging

6:30 PM – 9:00 PM

What does it mean to belong to a place, a nation, a family, one’s own past? To what do we owe our homelands and what happens when we are displaced from them? Novelist Charmaine Craig, whose Burmese mother was both a beauty queen and a revolutionary, illuminates both national and personal trauma in her prize-winning Miss Burma; Héctor Tobar set his novel Tattooed Soldier in Los Angeles before the riots and in his parents’ native Guatemala during the years of military dictatorship. Photojournalist and founder of Refugee Eye, Lara Aburamadan recounts the ugliness of war and the endless cycle of Israeli bombardments in her native Gaza, in an effort to fight the dehumanization of Palestinians, bring about social change, and promote peace. In conversation with Ipek S. Burnett, a Turkish-born author and psychologist; these writers discuss in what ways exile gives them freedom to write, create, or advocate— and in what ways the draw of “home” limits that expression. 

We are pleased to present this event with Thomas Mann House and the Goethe-Institut in the spirit of Thomas Mann’s 150th birthday celebration, who wrote many of his most well-known works from his exile residence in Los Angeles. 

Cost: Free

Location: Goethe-Institut Los Angeles - 1901 W 7th St Suite A/B, Los Angeles, CA 90057

Buy Tickets

Date: April 30 - May 3, 2025