PROGRAM
Please join us at Roosevelt House as we welcome two writers in conversation about their experiences as the children of radical ideological mothers, and the influence of their upbringing on their lives today. Peter Andreas, the John Hay Professor of International Studies at Brown University, is the author of the acclaimed memoir Rebel Mother: My Childhood Chasing the Revolution. He will discuss the book with Hunter professor of creative writing Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, author of When Skateboards Will Be Free, praised by the New York Times as an “exacting and finely made” book written with “extraordinary power and restraint.” The conversation will be moderated by Andrew J. Polsky, the Ruth and Harold Newman Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, Hunter College.
Andreas’s mother Carol was a traditional 1950s housewife from a small Mennonite town in central Kansas who became a radical feminist and Marxist revolutionary. From the late 60s to the early 80s, she went through multiple husbands and countless lovers while living in three states and five countries. Sayrafiezadeh’s Iranian-born father and American Jewish mother had one thing in common: their unshakable conviction that the workers’ revolution was coming. Separated since their son was nine months old, they each pursued a dream of the perfect socialist society. Pinballing with his mother between makeshift Pittsburgh apartments, falling asleep at party meetings, longing for the luxuries he’s taught to despise, Sayrafiezadeh waits for the revolution that never, ever arrives.
We hope you will be able to participate in this timely and important discussion.
