Stephanie Saldana
October 14 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Magic City Books, in partnership with Fellowship Congregational Church and Congregation B’nai Emunah, are proud to welcome Stephanie Saldana to Tulsa in celebration of her latest book, What We Remember Will Be Saved: A Story of Refugees and the Things They Carry on Monday September 14. This free event will start at 7 pm at Fellowship Congregational Church, 2900 S Harvard Ave.
In an era of mass migration, journalist Stephanie Saldana crosses nine countries to give voice to stories from the people of Iraq and Syria about hope, home, and what they rescued from war when everything else had been lost. What We Remember Will Be Saved is a book of hope, home, and the stories we hold within us when everything else has been lost.
Joining Stephanie in conversation will be Rabbi Dan Kaiman from Congregation B’nai Emunah. Following their discussion, there will be an opportunity to purchase a copy of Stephanie’s book, meet her and have your book signed.
What We Remember Will Be Saved is available now at Magic City Books and will be available at the event. If you are unable to attend the event but would like a signed copy, you can order one at: https://magiccitybooks.square.site/product/what-will-be-remembered/2471.
About What We Remember Will Be Saved
Eggplant seeds, a lullaby in a vanishing language, an embroidered dress. When people flee their homes, the things they save speak of beauty and suffering and the indomitable human spirit.
In an era of mass migration in which more than 100 million people are displaced comes this lyrical portrait of Syrian and Iraqi refugees and the belongings they carry. What We Remember Will Be Saved is a book of hope, home, and the stories we hold within us when everything else has been lost.
Journalist and scholar Stephanie Saldaña, who lived in Syria before the war, sets out on a journey across nine countries to meet refugees and learn what they salvaged from the ruins when they escaped. Now, in the narratives of six extraordinary women and men, from Mt. Sinjar to Aleppo to Lesvos to Amsterdam, we discover that the little things matter a great deal. Saldaña introduces us to a woman who saved her city in a dress, a musician who saved his stories in songs, and a couple who rebuilt their destroyed pharmacy even as the city around them fell apart. Together they provide a window into a religiously diverse corner of the Middle East on the edge of unraveling, and the people keeping it alive with their stories.
Born of years of friendship and reporting, What We Remember Will Be Saved is a breathtaking, elegiac odyssey into the heart of the largest refugee crisis in modern history. It reminds us that refugees are storytellers and speakers of vanishing languages, and of how much history can be distilled into a piece of fabric, or eggplant seeds. What we salvage tells our story. What we remember will be saved.
Stephanie Saldaña is a journalist and religion scholar from San Antonio, Texas, who has spent most of the last twenty years living in the Middle East. Saldaña studied religion at Harvard Divinity School and is the author of A Country Between and The Bread of Angels, hailed by Geraldine Brooks as “a remarkable, wise, and lovely book.” Her work has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, America Magazine, and Plough, and she has been featured on National Public Radio. Saldaña and her family split their time between Bethlehem and France.
