Ithaca City of Asylum

LANDSCAPES OF MEMORY: BELONGING, UNBELONGING

 a reading by Raza Rumi

scholar in residence at Ithaca College’s Honors Program and Ithaca City of Asylum’s featured writer

Author of Delhi by Heart: Impressions of a Pakistani Traveler, Raza Rumi will read from his memoir in progress. The reading will be followed by a Q &A. 

6 p.m.        Wed. March 30, 2016        Handwerker Gallery

part  of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF)

for more info:

http://www.ithaca.edu/fleff/razarumi/

In November 2014 Ithaca City of Asylum presented Ithaca Out Loud, a performance in which Ithaca actors read stories by Ithaca authors. WSKG radio was interested in airing the performance, and in January 2016 they selected “Maintenance,” by Jacob White, “an atmospheric and poetic story,” read by actor Masa Gibson.

You can listen to Gibson read “Maintenance” here:

WSKG: A Story of 2014’s “Ithaca Actors Read Ithaca Authors”

Cornell University and the Center for Transformative Action (CTA) will receive a 2016 Ashoka U-Cordes Innovation Award in recognition of the innovation, adaptability and maturity of CTA’s model of social entrepreneurship.

On January 22, 2016, former Ithaca City of Asylum writer Irakli Kakabadze was found guilty by a court in the Republic of Georgia on a charge stemming from his arrest during a peaceful protest on December 25, 2015. Kakabadze, who continues to suffer ill effects from a beating he endured during his detention after his arrest, has been fined the equivalent of $40USD. He plans to appeal the conviction. Video from the trial is available online.

PEN International has joined ICOA in calling for concerned people to write to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Georgia, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, to protest this situation.

Kakabadze was arrested on December 25 during a peaceful demonstration protesting the appointment of Judge Levan Murusidze to the Appeals Court of Georgia’s High Council of Justice. Critics claim that in 2007, Murusidze, as a member of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Georgia, reduced the sentences of four people convicted of murdering a human rights activist.

During his detention, Kakabadze suffered a minor concussion, lost a tooth, and sustained an injury to his foot. A video of his arrest is available online.

Kakabadze, who was the Ithaca City of Asylum writer-in-residence from 2008 to 2011, is an award-winning Georgian writer who also chairs the Georgia Mahatma Gandhi Foundation. He is the author of Candidate Jokola, Maskhara and Baudrillard, Medea Rehabilitation Project, and Mother Courage of the Caucasus. He is a multifaceted artist and has collaborated with a number of other writers and performers to establish ongoing projects such as the Polyphonic Blues Band and the theater group Theater for Change. Recently, Kakabadze has been teaching at Georgian American University in Tbilisi. While a resident writer in Ithaca, New York, he taught at Cornell University and Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

To take action, please send appeals:

• Calling for fair treatment and due process for Irakli Kakabadze;
• Calling for immediate investigation into his physical mistreatment during his arrest;
• Urging the authorities to ensure that there is no future harassment of writers and activists for their peaceful exercise of their right to protest or freedom of expression.

Send appeals to:

Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili

7 Ingorokva St

Tbilisi 0114, Georgia

You can also send an online appeal to the prime minister.

Please send a copy of your letter to the Embassy of Georgia to the USA:

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Archil Gegeshidze

1824 R Street, NW

Washington DC, 20009

embgeorgiausa@yahoo.com

Please also share a copy of your letter with PEN International: ann.harrison@pen-international.org.

Ithaca City of Asylum board members are calling on people to write to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Georgia, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, to protest the arrest and beating of former resident writer Irakli Kakabadze by security forces in the Republic of Georgia on December 25, 2015. Kakabadze, the Ithaca City of Asylum writer-in-residence from 2008 to 2011, was detained and injured on December 25, according to e-mail reports from Zurab Rtveliashvili, a former guest writer of Stockholm city, part of the International Cities of Refuge Network project (ICORN).

Kakabadze’s mistreatment occurred during a peaceful demonstration protesting the appointment of Judge Levan Murusidze to the Appeals Court of Georgia’s High Council of Justice. Critics claim that in 2007, Murusidze, as a member of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Georgia, reduced the sentences of four people convicted of murdering a human rights activist.

Rtveliashvili reports that during the arrest, Kakabadze suffered a minor concussion, lost a tooth, and sustained an injury to his foot. Kakabadze, who is out on bail, will be tried beginning January 20. A video of his arrest is available on Facebook here.

Kakabadze is an award-winning Georgian writer who also chairs the Georgia Mahatma Gandhi Foundation. He is the author of Candidate Jokola, Maskhara and Baudrillard, Medea Rehabilitation Project, and Mother Courage of the Caucasus. He is a multifaceted artist and has collaborated with a number of other writers and performers to establish ongoing projects such as the Polyphonic Blues Band and the theater group Theater for Change. Recently, Kakabadze has been teaching at Georgian American University in Tbilisi. While a resident writer in Ithaca, New York, he taught at Cornell University and Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

To write to Prime Minister Kvirikashvili to insist on fair treatment and due process of Irakli and other activists, please go here and click on the box on the left hand side of the page marked “Write to Prime Minister.”

Ithaca City of Asylum presents Voices of Freedom 2015, featuring our new writer-in-residence, Raza Ahmad Rumi.

Rumi is a Pakistani policy analyst, journalist, and author. He has been a leading voice in Pakistan’s public arena against extremism and human-rights violations. With solid policy experience through his work for the Government of Pakistan and the Asian Development Bank (as Governance Specialist), Raza entered into journalism in 2008. Since then, he has been an editor at The Friday Times, Pakistan’s foremost liberal weekly paper. He also worked in broadcast media as a leading commentator and hosted talk shows at Capital TV and Express News. Rumi was Director at Jinnah Institute, a public-policy think tank, and Executive Director of Justice Network, a coalition of NGOs. As a freelance policy professional he has been advising international development organizations, governments, and NGOs, and, until recently, he headed NAPSIPAG, an Asia Pacific network on governance. Rumi’s writings are archived at razarumi.com. His recent book Delhi by Heart was published by Harper Collins (2013). In March 2014, he survived an assassination attempt in which his driver lost his life. Within weeks, he left Pakistan and was affiliated with New America Foundation and the United States Institute of Peace.

Please join us at Voices of Freedom on November 19 to help welcome Raza Rumi into the Ithaca, New York community.

Ithaca City of Asylum’s fourth resident writer, Irakli Kakabadze, resumed his career as a human rights campaigner in the Republic of Georgia in 2012 after the defeat of Prime Minister Saakashvili, under whose regime he was harassed and imprisoned five times. During a February 2015 protest at a trial of the murderers of an activist, he was assaulted and threatened by a member of a paramilitary group.

Kakabadze is currently teaching at the Georgian American University and International Caucasus University. Three of his new plays have been staged in Georgia in recent years. He is also working with an advocacy group, the Institute for Multi-track Diplomacy, Georgia.

Kakabadze’s wife, Anna Dolidze, who received a J.S.D. from Cornell Law School while Kakabadze was writer in residence in Ithaca, has just been appointed Deputy Minister for Defense of the Republic of Georgia. Dolidze, who is a professor at Western Law in Canada, will have responsibilities in the area of human rights, including international relations and international law activities of the Ministry, cooperation with NATO, and the rights of veterans.

Reza Daneshvar 1948–2015

The Iranian playwright, Reza Daneshvar, who was Ithaca City of Asylum’s second resident writer, passed away in Paris on May 27, 2015. He was 67 years old. Reza lived in Ithaca from 2003–2006, during which he completed English versions of Mahboobeh and Ahl (published by Vista Periodista in 2004) and Don’t Go To The Wedding With Friends of the Groom (Vista Periodista 2005), along with premiering two new plays, Sandwich Deluxe (2004) and Alfred (2005). He taught theater at Cornell University during his sojourn in Ithaca, and also collaborated with noted translator Catherine Porter, the late editor Deborah Tall, and numerous theater professionals.

“Reza made a great many friends in Ithaca,” notes ICOA board member Bridget Meeds. “He was deeply beloved for his wit, warmth, love of good food, vast curiosity, and benevolent good humor. We will miss him terribly.”

Reza was born in Machad, Iran. He studied Persian literature at both Machad and Teheran Universities before beginning a career teaching theater studies in Machad. He went on to become the head of the theater program in Khorassan province, and at the time of the revolution he was vice president of the School of Arts in Machad. He moved to Paris in 1982, and worked and wrote there for the three decades. Daneshvar was the author of seven plays; four novels, including Khosro-e Khoban (published in France as Le Brave des Braves); and three short story collections, including Mahboubeh el Al (published in France as Les Jardins de Solitude). Critics note his work reflected his immense knowledge of popular vernacular, proverbs, and folklore, as well as his masterful command of Persian.

Edward Hower, a member of the ICOA board, published his latest book, What Can You Do: Personal Essays and Travel Writing, in October. A witch-haunted temple in India; carrying a spear in New York City operas; witnessing a revolution in Guatemala; mediums, spiritual seekers, and frauds; teaching at a maximum security prison; and how love rides the rails are but a few of the subjects in this lively and eloquent collection of essays about inner quests and journeys of discovery to out-of-the-way destinations.

Hower previously published eight novels and two books of stories, including The Pomegranate Princess and Other Tales from India (Wayne State University Press, 1991), a collection of folk tales. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, Smithsonian, American Scholar, Epoch, Southern Review, and elsewhere. Hower has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Fulbright grants to India.

After Hower graduated from Cornell University in 1963, he lived in East Africa for three years, where he taught high school, sang in local nightclubs, and wrote his first novel, The New Life Hotel. Later, he earned a masters degree in Anthropology from the University of California, doing fieldwork among Los Angeles street gangs.

Like many writers, Hower has held a variety of jobs: a salesman, a counselor at girls’ reformatory (the subject of his second novel, Wolf Tickets), and a general of the Egyptian army (a non-singing role he performed in the New York City Opera Company production of Handel’s Julius Caesar). More recently, he has taught at several American universities and has given writing workshops in Tobago, Greece, Sri Lanka, Britain, Nepal, and Key West, Florida. Many of these classes he has co-taught with his wife, the novelist Alison Lurie. He has lived in Ithaca, New York since 1975, and has two grown children, Dan and Lana.

An interview with the author about this book is available at The Five Points website, a journal of literature and art. Barbara Adams, another ICOA board member, wrote a review of this book that recently appeared in the Ithaca Times. What Can You Do: Personal Essays and Travel Writing, is now available at local bookstores and via the web at Cayuga Lake Books and Amazon.com.