This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Arts & Entertainment

Roya Hakakian, Author of “A Beginner’s Guide to America"

Presented by the Friends of the Ferguson Library, in Partnership with the Mayor's Multicultural Council.

The Friends of the Ferguson Library, in partnership with the Mayor's Multicultural Council, presents An Evening with Roya Hakakian, the Author of A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious, on Monday, January 31 at 6:30 p.m. at the Main Library, DiMattia Building. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation. The event will also be broadcast on Zoom. Registration is required to attend in person. Register online on the library's website. The Zoom login information is also available on the library's website.

A Beginner’s Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious is written as a guide for the newly arrived, providing practical information and advice that reveals a portrait of what the new immigrant experience in America is really like.

Roya Hakakian, an immigrant herself, captures the texture of life in a new place in all its complexity, laying bare both its beauty and its darkness as she discusses race, sex, love, death, consumerism, and what it is like to be from a country that is in America's cross hairs.

Find out what's happening in Stamfordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Her perceptive and surprisingly humorous account invites us to see ourselves as we appear to others, making it possible for us to rediscover our many American gifts through the perspective of the outsider. A Beginner's Guide to America is Hakakian's candid love letter to America.

Roya Hakakian is the author of Assassins of the Turquoise Palace and Journey from the Land of No, and has published two collections of poetry in Persian. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and on NPR's All Things Considered. She has collaborated on programming for leading journalism units in network television, including 60 Minutes. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and served on the editorial board of World Affairs.

Find out what's happening in Stamfordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

The Ferguson Library Main Library, DiMattia Building is located at the corner of Bedford and Broad streets, Stamford. For more information, call 203 351-8231.

Note: Proof of COVID vaccination or a negative COVID test within 72 hours is required to attend library programs in the Main Library Dudley N. Williams, Jr. Auditorium. Face masks are also required in all indoor spaces in Stamford regardless of vaccination status.

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?