7014-A WESTMORELAND AVE
TAKOMA PARK, MARYLAND
20912
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Christine Evans for “Nadia”
September 22, 2023 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Free
About the Book:
Nadia moves between the competing perspectives of two survivors of the 1990s Balkan Wars who have escaped to London, only to discover that the war has followed them there. Nadia is a young refugee who just wants to forget the past—until Iggy starts temping at her London office. Afraid he may be a sniper from the war she fled, Nadia starts seeing threats everywhere, alongside unsettling visions of her lost girlfriend, Sanja.
As her volatile connection with Iggy unravels, Nadia is forced to face the shaky, ethical choices she made to escape the war, her survivor guilt, and her disavowed queer sexuality. Nadia takes us to the recent past of a war that broke apart a European country and that presciently foreshadowed the rise of ethno-nationalism in the West. Tense, suspenseful, and mordantly funny, Nadia tracks the complex ways in which a past marked by political violence can shadow and disrupt the present.
“Shockingly original, stunningly written, Nadia is fierce, funny, and tragic, filled with encroaching dread about a Serbian ex-sniper and a young Bosnian refugee who is so distinctive she should be patented. Like Emily St. John Mandel, the author plants us in a cryptic, dangerous new reality we never doubt for a second. To say I loved this novel is an understatement. To say you should read it is a command.”—Caroline Leavitt, author, With or Without You
“From its very first sentence, Christine Evans’s Nadia sweeps the reader up in a riveting tale of war, survival, love, and trauma. The story is set in London, just after the Balkan Wars, but is less about fighting than about the way any war forces those caught in it to face who they really are, what they believe, and what they will do about it. Nadia is immensely rewarding to read, touching both the intellect and the heart.”—Helen Benedict, author, Wolf Season
About the Author:
Christine Evans writes internationally produced plays, fiction, and opera libretti. Recent projects include the chamber opera Three Marys at the Sydney Opera House (Composer Andrée Greenwell). Evans is a Professor of Performing Arts at Georgetown University, and lives in Washington, D.C. Visit her at christineevanswriter.com.
Christine will be joined in conversation with fellow author Sarah Cypher. Sarah Cypher is the author of The Skin and Its Girl (Ballantine 2023) and holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where she was a Rona Jaffe Creative Writing Fellow in Fiction. She grew up in a Lebanese Christian family near Pittsburgh and lives in Washington, D.C., with her wife.
Event will be in person.
