To See Beyong, With Anna Badkhen & Alysia Nicole Harris

We’re glad to welcome Anna Badkhen to The Wild Detectives for a conversation around her new essay collection, To See Beyond, alongside Alysia Nicole Harris. In our hyper-informed digital era of climate catastrophe, historically unmatched migration, and genocide, To See Beyond confronts a difficult contradiction: the pain and struggles of others are more visible than ever, yet hostility and loneliness persist. Through reflections on contemporary literature and stories drawn from encounters across the world, Badkhen considers how people continue to live, create, and care for one another amid uncertainty and despair. Together, Badkhen and Harris will discuss literature, testimony, and the ways language can help us navigate grief, intimacy, and collective life. The conversation will be followed by an audience Q&A and book signing. “No book I have read in recent years is more relevant to our time, more insightful, more probing, more unsparing in its analysis or more generous of heart than To See Beyond. Anna Badkhen’s lifetime of deep reading and dangerous living has yielded these profoundly moving essays that range from Canary Islands myth to hunger stones, from ‘radical hope’ and child soldiers to micro-love and prayer beads and a lifejacket graveyard on Lesvos. Through it all, she insists on asking the common questions that unite us: How to dream, how to love, how to build a better world? If you’re looking for the answers, start with To See Beyond.” —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Rasputin Swims the Potomac Anna Badkhen is the author of eight books of nonfiction, including To See Beyond and Bright Unbearable Reality, longlisted for the National Book Award. Born in the Soviet Union and a former war correspondent, she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship, and the Joel R. Seldin Award for Excellence in Peace and Justice Journalism, among other honors. She is an artist in residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia. Dr. Alysia Nicole Harris is a poetic intercessor connecting communities in Atlanta, Corsicana, and abroad. She holds a PhD from Yale and an MFA from NYU, using language and spoken word to deepen human understanding. She considers herself a gospel journalist, highlighting stories of how personal testimony, the arts, and spiritual faith can positively shift our social landscape. Alysia is the founder and executive director of Meetinghouse Revival, an organization that preserves Black history by restoring Black churches, and she admires Anna greatly. Don’t miss out and sign up to our newsletter

Indie bookstore & cafe offering a variety of titles, light fare & drinks, author readings & music.

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We’re glad to welcome Anna Badkhen to The Wild Detectives for a conversation around her new essay collection, To See Beyond, alongside Alysia Nicole Harris. In our hyper-informed digital era of climate catastrophe, historically unmatched migration, and genocide, To See Beyond confronts a difficult contradiction: the pain and struggles of others are more visible than ever, yet hostility and loneliness persist. Through reflections on contemporary literature and stories drawn from encounters across the world, Badkhen considers how people continue to live, create, and care for one another amid uncertainty and despair. Together, Badkhen and Harris will discuss literature, testimony, and the ways language can help us navigate grief, intimacy, and