VenueCity of Asylum/Pittsburgh 

Date12/01/2016 

Time8:00 PM - 10:00 PM  

Event TypeReading 

GenreFiction 

Sponsor 

Cost $0.00
 

Description and Reader Names:
Book Talk with Harriet Levin Millan
December 1, 2016 @ 8 p.m.
FREE RSVP
Join us for a book talk between the author of How Fast Can You Run, Harriet Levin Millan, and the protagonist on whom the book is based, Michael Majok Kuch on the subject of immigration, refugees and life in South Sudan.

Set across a backdrop of refugee migration that spans Africa, America and Australia, How Fast Can You Run is the inspiring story of Michael Majok Kuch and his journey to find his mother. In 1988, Majok, as a five-year-old boy, fled his burning village in southern Sudan when the North systematically destroyed it, searching for John Garang, the South’s leader. Majok, along with thousands of other fleeing people, many of them unaccompanied minors, trekked through the wilderness in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya to arrive at a series of refugee camps where he would live for the next ten years. When the U.S. brokered an agreement, granting approximately 4,000 unaccompanied minors political asylum, Majok, now Michael, was given a new start in the U.S. Yet his new life was not without trauma. He faced prejudice once again, disrupting the promise of his new beginnings. This is a story of a survivor who in facing challenge after challenge summons the courageous spirit of millions of refugees throughout history and today.



levin_convertedHarriet Levin Millan is a prize winning poet and writer. Her poetry collection, The Christmas Show, (Beacon Press) was selected for the Barnard New Women Poets Prize and The Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award. She received a MFA from the University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop and has written for The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Harvard Review, The Iowa Review, PEN America, The Smart Set, among other publications. She and her family founded the Reunion Project and along with the participation of Philadelphia-area high school and college students, raised money to reunite several Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan with their mothers living abroad. She teaches creative writing in the English Department at Drexel University and directs the Certificate Program in Writing and Publishing. She lives with her husband outside Philadelphia.

Michael Majok Kuch returned to his homeland of South Sudan in 2010, after attending high school, college, and graduate school in Philadelphia. In 2005, he was featured in the PBS Documentary, Dinka Diaries, as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. In 2008, he was the recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Department of Education Scholarship to Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya. He currently works for the government of the Republic of South Sudan, where he is an advisor in Research and Policy in the Office of the President. He lives in Juba with his wife and daughter.

EVENT DETAILS

December 1, 2016 @ 8 p.m. 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15212 Readings

Contact the Venue with questions.

Address 1330 Sampsonia Way 

Address 2 

Address 3 

CityPittsburgh 

StatePA 

Zip15212 

Days/Hours of Operation 

Primary Contact PersonHenry Reese 

Primary Contact Emailcontact@cityofasylumpittsburgh.org 

Telephone412-323-0278 

Websitewww.cityofasylumpittsburgh.org 

Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/cityofasylumpittsburgh 

Twitterhttp://twitter.com/sampsonia_way 

AuthorHarriet Millan 

Websitehttp://harrietlevinmillan.com 

Facebookhttp://hari levin millan 

Twitterhttp://hari levin millan @harrietlevin 

Short bio: I am the author of three books of poetry and the forthcoming novel, How Fast Can You Run. I teach writing and direct the Certificate Program in Writing and Publishing at Drexel University.