Daniel Borzutzky - "The Murmuring Grief of the Americas" - Barbara Sostaita

Friday, November 15, 2024 - 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Event Presenter/Author: 
Daniel Borzutzky

Daniel Borzutzky will discuss The Murmuring Grief of the Americas. He will be joined in conversation Barbara Sostaita. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion.

At the Co-op.

RSVP Here (Please note that your RSVP is requested but not required.)

About the Book: “All I ever wanted is to keep the police away from the outside of my body and keep the police away from the inside of my body.”

In The Murmuring Grief of the Americas, 2016 National Book Award winner Daniel Borzutzky holds to account the private interests driving Western humanitarian decisions, laying bare the immense toll of exploitative labor practices and the self-serving nature of authoritative bodies. These powerful, musical poems explore our hemispheric grief under the yokes of labyrinthine immigration policies, militarized policing, and mass capitalism.

About the Author: Daniel Borzutzky is a poet and translator. His 2016 collection, The Performance of Becoming Human, received the National Book Award. Lake Michigan (2018) was a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize. His most recent translation is Paula Ilabaca Nuñez’s The Loose Pearl (2022), winner of the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. He teaches English and Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

About the Interlocutor: Barbara Sostaita is a scholar of religion and global migration. She grew up undocumented in the south, the daughter of a minister who taught her how religion informs and shapes migrant-led organizing. Her forthcoming book, Sanctuary Everywhere, is an ethnographic study of fugitive care practices in the Sonoran desert. This book and her other projects consider how people on the move—including migrants, artists, and organizers—engage with the sacred to cross and transgress borders. Her work has been published in academic journals such as American Religion and Southern Cultures, and in magazines like The Nation and Teen Vogue.

Event Location: 
Seminary Co-op
5751 S Woodlawn Ave
Chicago, IL 60637