Ithaca City of Asylum
Providing refuge for persecuted writers and artists since 2001
Category: Uncategorized
Calls Beyond Our Hearing and Murder, She Rode
Holly Menino, ICOA board member, produced two books recently, with very different audiences. The first, Calls Beyond Our Hearing: Unlocking the Secrets of Animal Voices was published last April and is a fascinating exploration of animals, their voices, and their survival. Recovering from…
Read MoreICOA at Spring Writes 2013
ICOA writer-in-residence, Sonali Samarasinghe and novelist Edward Hower, a longtime ICOA board member, were featured speakers at “Writing to Create Change,” a reading and panel discussion that is part of Ithaca’s Spring Writes Festival. The event took place on Saturday,…
Read MoreSamarasinghe’s Class Hosts UNESCO Human Rights Chair
Ithaca City of Asylum’s writer-in-residence, Sonali Samarasinghe, has maintained a lively teaching schedule in her capacity as Visiting Scholar in Residence in Ithaca College’s Honors Program. Her course Human Rights Litigation has brought a number of guest speakers to the…
Read MoreFestival Film Features ICOA Writer-in-Residence
Silenced Voices: Tales of Sri Lankan Journalists in Exile, was a presentation of Ithaca College’s Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) this year. The documentary features Sonali Samarasinghe and her experiences with the Sri Lankan government’s repression of the media. Samarasinghe is ICOA’s writer-in-residence…
Read MoreSamarasinghe Featured at Pittsburgh Event
Sonali Samarsinghe, ICOA’s resident writer, was the featured speaker at an event hosted by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, Wednesday, March 6. Samarasinghe gave a reading from her work and, after this presentation, she conducted a two-day residency at the Ellis School,…
Read MoreTelling Truths in Arusha
Ithaca College screened Telling Truths in Arusha, a powerful documentary by Norwegian filmmaker Beate Arnestad, on February 11, 2013, at 7 p.m. in Textor 103. A discussion with filmmaker Beate Arnestad and prosecutor Brian Wallace, moderated by politics professor Dr. Peyi…
Read MoreThe Fierce Urgency of Now: Samarasinghe is Keynote Speaker
Sonali Samarasinghe provided the keynote speech for Ithaca’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Celebration on January 21, 2013. During her talk she spoke about how she had to flee her native Sri Lanka with only a few belongings, one of which…
Read MoreEuropean Court of Human Rights Vindicates Kakabadze
On October 2, 2012, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) awarded monetary recompense to Irakli Kakabadze, former Ithaca City of Asylum writer in residence, and others who filed suit against the Republic of Georgia after being detained during a demonstration in…
Read MoreWhen They Came for Us: Freedom to Write in Sri Lanka
“… when you are compelled to leave your … family, your work, your country, and your life as you knew it, that’s when you realize you cannot give up. You have to do more, you have to speak louder, write…
Read MoreICOA’s Fifth Writer-in-residence: Sonali Samarasinghe
Ithaca City of Asylum (ICOA) is proud to announce that its writer-in-residence for 2012–14 is the human rights activist and award-winning journalist Sonali Samarasinghe. While practicing law in Sri Lanka, Samarasinghe worked as an editor and journalist focusing on government corruption…
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