Ithaca City of Asylum has three events planned for spring 2019. Join us for these collaborations with other literary and human rights organizations:

• Wednesday, April 3, 2019, 6 p.m. Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College Library: A panel on “Journalism in an Age of Despots,” part of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF). Speakers include former ICOA writers-in-residence Sonali Samarasinghe, now Sri Lankan delegate to the United Nations; and Raza Rumi, now Director, Park Center for Independent Me as well as special guest Pedro Molina, a political cartoonist from Nicaragua.

• Saturday, May 4, 2019, 12:30 p.m.Community Arts Partnership event space, Ithaca Commons: A Spring Writes panel, “Expression as Freedom: The Power of Literature in Exile and Incarceration.” Members of ICOA and local Amnesty International chapters discuss the ways the exiled and the incarcerated express their experiences through the arts.

• Saturday, May 18, 2019, 1-3 p.m. Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St.: A reading by Vietnamese-American novelist Viet Thanh Ngyuen, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Co-sponsored by Buffalo Street Books and Ithaca City of Asylum.

Sonali Samarasinghe, former ICOA visiting writer from Sri Lanka. Photo by Dede Hatch

Raza Rumi, former ICOA visiting writer from Pakistan. Photo by Barbara Adams