
The Iranian graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi wrote the book Persepolis to document her flight from Tehran. The Afghan novelist Khaled Hosseini wrote the book the Kite Runner to tell the story of the fall of Kabul through the eyes of a young boy. Perhaps the greatest Catalan writer of all time, Mercè Rodoreda, fled Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War and spent the rest of her life in exile in France and Switzerland.
This is a story that goes on and on, over time and around the globe.
Ovid, one of three canonical poets of the Roman Empire, was exiled by Emperor Augustus to the Black Sea for the rest of his life. Salka Viertel fled the Nazis and ended up with a career writing for Greta Garbo and Ida Lupino in Hollywood.
These are voices of a planet in disarray. Though different, they share the experience of being writers who fled their home countries and then sought ways to continue telling stories to the rest of the world.
This is in fact what Salman Rushdie wanted to talk about the day he was stabbed on stage : the experience of being a writer in forced exile.
The CERDAN STORIES podcast will introduce you to exiled writers and talk with them about their craft, their language, and the particular ways they adapt, or don’t, to new and very unfamiliar places. We strive to tell the stories our guests want to tell, often circling around ideas of home and identity, what is lost and what is gained.
Current Episode
March 22, 2023
Philippe WEISZ
Immigration Attorney &
child of Hungarian
Holocaust survivors
Lives in Philadelphia, PA, USA
In this episode of Cerdan Stories, we meet immigration attorney Philippe Weisz, Director of Legal Services at HIAS-Pennsylvania and talk about how his personal family history inspires the work he does every day helping new immigrants receive legal status in the US.
Thank you to Philippe for sharing your commitment to and knowledge of our complex immigration system with us, as well as sharing the French children's song Une Fleur au Chapeau, which you can find in its entirety here.
If you or someone you know needs legal help for immigration issues in the United States, Philippe says that the best place to go is the US Immigration Court Pro Bono Legal Service Providers web page, which can be found here.
This is our last episode of season 1. We are already hard at work on putting together a great second season, so please be sure to like us on your podcast platform and on social media and be sure to join us again when we return. See you then!
