Episode 39: Reframing Trauma

October 24th, 2019
Hosted by Brian Birnbaum
Guests: Atia Abawi
Guest Produced by Annie Krabbenschmidt
Transcript by Jon Kay
Podcast Assistant: Dylan Thomas

We're so excited about this week's episode! We recorded this episode live at this year's Fall for the Book Festival in Fairfax, Virgina! Featuring YA Author Atia Abawi, we discussed how she and host Brian Birnbaum redefine the definitions of home and trauma. In Abawi’s book, A Land of Permanent Goodbyes, Syria is torn apart due to war, leaving each survivor with a new and dangerous label: refugee. And in Birnbaum’s Emerald City, a family company’s profits are being used to illegally fund a drug-crop in Guatemala. Guest Atia Abawi is a foreign news correspondent who was stationed for almost five years in Kabul, Afghanistan. She was born to Afghan parents in West Germany and was raised in the United States. Her first book for teens was the powerful The Secret Sky, about forbidden romance between different ethnic tribes in Afghanistan. And today's podcast was lovingly guest produced by the one and only Annie Krabbenschmidt.

>> Brian: Welcome to the 39th episode of the Animal Riot Podcast, brought to you by Animal Riot Press, a literary press for books that matter. I'm your host, Brian Birnbaum, and we're live at the Fall For The Book festival here in Virginia on George Mason University's campus. For more information about the Fall For The Book festival, please visit fallforthebook.org. Today's episode is special because it features Atia Abawi who will read from her novel "A Land of Permanent Goodbyes". "A Land of Permanent Goodbyes" is a tragic yet uplifting story that follows the survivors of the Syrian Civil War, their experience as refugees to Turkey, Greece and eventually, Germany and all that lies along that treacherous journey.

I'll also be reading from my novel, and so from there we're going to embark on a discussion surrounding the redefining and reframing of trauma, and there's pretty stark contrast between our two books. So I'm gonna go first because I think we're gonna really make this more about your book. But, you know, we can maybe inflict the discussion with a little bit of what I read.

So I'm gonna read from my new book, Emerald City, which is set in Seattle from the perspective of one of my main characters, Julia, whose father is an addict and was sober for 20 years. And then some financial things came and family things came up and he relapses. And so that's what they're dealing with at this point.

========

Excerpt from Emerald City by Brian Birnbaum

Julia and her mother returned from the Bay Heights blood drive to find the kitchen’s bay window broken at the stays.

Julia hoped his homecoming, though unconventional, proved he was still in there, somewhere, perfectly preserved within a crystalgenic freeze. However, helping her mother pick through the pilfer, the wreck left in wake of his recent presence struck her as the stains of a bad dream, a leftover residue that only made it realer.

No, San Francisco wasn’t what it was back in the ’80s—but back in the ’80s, he’d been using in New York, and he’d left it back there. After following him to 433 Lombard and eavesdropping on his commitment speech, Julia had prodded her father for details. At first reticent, over time he dropped little snippets, casually, and only in context. But he never allowed access to primary resources: the Polaroids of him at upstate biker bars; the track marks on his ankles hidden by socks; his black book of sponsors and sponsees, former and current, proving, if anything, that San Francisco carried the day for meth’s target demographic.

Since he’d left—or gone back—she imagined him skulking the Tenderloin, ripping narcotized lushes, diving for newspapers and discarded blankets and squatting in the Haight. Alas, like the morsels and crumbs she’d shaken from him, her imagination couldn’t recreate the feast of his firsthand experience.

But then, today, she saw with her own eyes what she’d so lustily sought in his stories: his faint shoeprints leading from the prized window; the pillaged drawers and ransacked closets; the lockbox’s busted emptiness. As witness to his ruin, Julia realized that juicy details were just arid derivatives. She’d never touch his darkness.

But could she be infected by it? 

========

>> Brian: So I'll stop there. Let's move on to you. I want to give a little bio of you. I know this is the same bio that's in the back of your book. For those of you who don't know, Atia Abawi is a foreign news correspondent and an award winning author who lived in the Middle East and Asia for a decade. Born a refugee in Germany to Afghan parents who fled fled a brutal war, Atia was raised in the United States. Her first book for teens was the critically acclaimed, an award winning The Secret Sky, set in contemporary Afghanistan. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Connor Powell, and her family. And Connor right now is around the corner at Starbucks with the little cute baby.

>> Atia: Thanks.

>> Brian: But yet let's do a reading and then we'll dive into the conversation.

>> Atia: Okay, Sure. I'm gonna start. So the book is about a young boy named Tareq who is fleeing Syria after a bomb hits their home, their apartment and the surviving family members and himself, they have to find their way to Europe. I call it risking your life in order to live a life This is a little chapter on their trip on the dingy from Turkey to Greece. They're on a boat full of other refugees trying to make it across the Aegean Sea.

==========

Be sure to read A Land of Permanent Goodbyes by Atia Abawi published by Philomel Books

==========

>> Atia: I'm gonna stop their just cause the chapter goes on and on. And it just kind of give you a glimpse of what it's like to be on a boat and what it's like when you think it's a short distance, but it's actually really not. And you have children on the boat. You have chaos on the boat and really, you're only protected by some air inside of a rubber dingy and some rough waters. And unfortunately, that's why we saw tens of thousands of people die on those exact waters.

>> Brian: And I want to ask you, at some point about what led you to your specific perspectives Because I know you saw the life jackets at some point of the book. I think it's Tareq sees the mountain of life jackets from all of the people that made it across the Aegean.

>> Atia: Yeah, what we call the life jacket graveyard.

>> Brian: And I do want to come back to that to see exactly who you spoke to and what you saw yourself. The first thing I want to talk about it in a more global sense about your book is at the very beginning you choose to tell the book from the perspective of Destiny, which is like a form of an omniscient narrator. But you specifically distinguish it from, like fate, determination or predestination. What went into that choice like is was there something more logical? Or was it like more of a feeling based thing. Or like where did it come from?

>> Atia: It’s interesting because I was writing the book originally with Tareq’s point of view, and it just didn't feel right. Then I started writing it in a third person narration, and that also just didn't click for me, so I thought, Well, what am I gonna do? And some reason Destiny came to mind because I started thinking about just humanity in general and how oftentimes we forget that literally everyone in this world has been touched by human migration one way or another, whether it be forced migration, whether it be refugees from war, refugees are leaving because of famine or leaving for a better opportunity. Depending on who you are sometimes you forget that you had ancestors that had gone through it. Unfortunately, that's what we're seeing a lot right now, especially here in America. So I thought to myself, who knows the story of human history the way that we can't know ourselves? And for some reason, Destiny popped into my mind and I just started writing it and Destiny's point of view. It worked for me.

>> Brian: Did you have to throw out a lot of material to get back to that, or were you pretty early on in the process? 

>> Atia: It was about three chapters, so I wrote those 1st 3 chapters in several points of view, just to see what felt right for me. And that felt right for me, especially when I read articles just touching on this a little bit is when I read articles, especially in our news about neo Nazi attacks here in America, and you look at the last names and it's often Italian or Irish sounding last names and you think thes kids, these people forgot that their ancestors were targeted just a few decades before. And I think of my husband, who has Swedish, Irish, German, Welsh background and his grandmother, who was a blond hair, blue eyed German woman, was targeted by the KKK in Nebraska just several decades ago, and luckily he hasn't forgotten that story. But there's so many people in our society, in societies all over the world who have forgotten that part of their history, and therefore they target others today forgetting that they had loved ones or people connected to them that were once the victims.

>> Brian: Yeah, yeah, that was what I was thinking throughout the book. That it is a story that shows that you know, the common trope in a common theme in America is that we're all immigrants, you know, that's what people say. It really is Destiny, I saw, we’re all human. That's it and you kind of framed it, especially, uh, and I was actually gonna ask this later, but I'll just ask it now. You frame it as their helpers, and there are people who hurt, you know, especially toward the end. And I'm really curious about Alexi’s character because she is an American college student who basically has taken time off to go help out on on the island in Greece. Did she come from a part of you or someone that you spoke to or some combination of that? Because I know you're a refugee, and you came over here very young, correct? And so, obviously, you know, you know what your parents have been through, but you're also an American. And so I feel like you can feel that desire to help. And you did go over there. You did talk to all these people. So where did she come from? Or was she just blossom into the narrative? Has just someone that organically came up.

>> Atia: Now, that's a great question. So I talked about the helpers and the hunters in humanity, and I always say that we all have helper and Hunter inside of us, and it's what we choose to magnify that defines us. Unfortunately, in situations like this, in situations, in any situation really, we will find people who are really taking advantage and hurting people who are already struggling. And then when I went to research this story and it's a devastating situation with refugees. People dying literally to survive. When I got to Greece to do my research, I stayed with five volunteers from different parts of the world. There was a Chinese volunteer, a Hungarian volunteer, Welsh, American, British.

>> Brian: Similar to the differences of volunteers in the book. People from all over them all over the globe.

>> Atia: Exactly. And when I witnessed this, it reminded me that yes, it's a devastating situation and we have a lot of, I guess, quote unquote bad guys in this situation and you talk about the war when you talk about, you know, people stuck in camps, countries closing off borders, you don't often focus on the helpers. And when I saw that, it reminded me that I needed to focus on these people as well because these are people who are taking time out of their lives, leaving their families, spending their own money to help people that they don't know. I often bring up the fact that you know Syria and Israel to countries that are still technically at war. You would consider them mortal enemies. But when you go on the beaches of Lesbos where these rubber dinghies were coming in, there were Israeli doctors helping these families off. You'd watch a job be Syrian grandmother, kissing a Jewish doctor on the forehead and it no longer was their governments. It was human beings working together and helping each other. And it's something that we should always remember to keep hope, because sometimes even the people who are the helpers lose hope. I mean, there are times that I sometimes think Oh my God, when is this world gonna get better? Is it not gonna get better? And then I realize, you know, there are a lot of people working to make that change. Make sure that we have a better future. And that's that's why I decided to talk about Alexia and Alexia was based on people that I met there. People that I read about. I think there was there was one. There was one woman who was actually on vacation in Greece with her father when she saw what was happening. And she didn't feel comfortable being on vacation while these people were coming in on boats. So she flew over to Lesbos. She started documenting her life there helping the refugees. And I thought, This is a great character. So I kind of blended it all in to make the character of Alexia.

>> Brian: Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. When I was reading this, that my my first impulse was like, I want to go over there right now because it's just terrible. It is. It's really terrible. I guess, speaking in in terms of redefining the trauma. Was there a choice in terms of how you wrote the book, it's presented for a pretty wide audience, like, you know, it's framed is like young adult or you know in that. But that kind of would be inclusive of everyone, really like in a sense. Maybe below a certain age threshold, maybe not was that a pointed decision and do you think that that kind of allows people to look at it in a way? I guess, as our lovely producer, Annie, put it yesterday to tap into, like, the child spirit, and he was talking about how, when you when you go into therapy, it's often like getting in touch with that core emotion that we're not allowed to show in public, especially in society when we go to work every day. Is there something about framing it in this language in this voice that allows us to kind of get more direct contact with it? And it's not shrouded and sort of flowery language or writerly flourishes. Or, you know, not that those things aren't there, but it is accessible.

>> Atia: When I write, I know it's considered YA, but when I write, I write for everyone. Um, because I honestly think young readers are in a way more advanced than we give them credit for. They're not just children. In fact, young people, they think and feel as deeply, if not more deeply, at times. But I also write for their parents. When I write, I'm hoping that their mother or father or grandparent is gonna decide Well, this is an interesting topic. I mean, let me try to pick it up. In fact, I've gotten a lot of responses from parents who bought the book originally for their kids and got to read it themselves. When I write, I don't try to, I guess, change the way I write just because it's YA. Because I think that first of all teen readers are, in a way more advanced readers at times. We often think YA is just fantasy and it's not and don't get me wrong. Fantasy books are amazing and more depth to it than in fact. I look at the Hunger Games and I'm just blown away by all the research sheeted on PTSD and all that when she wrote the book. But I think that I think that young people definitely want to know more in their minds right now are more open than when you're an adult. So I feel like they will want to pick this up as well as pick up the book that's, you know, from a faraway land that has nothing to do with their lives.

>> Annie: And I think what Brian was maybe saying that we were kind of talking about yesterday was just that there's so much power in letting a youthful narrator talk about those emotions without the... As we grow up, we kind of develop more savvy waves to talk around our trauma or to talk without talking about it. That's more intellectualized. But that youth narrative can actually help us just get directly to the heart of the emotion and the heart of the traumatic experience, as opposed to what we've all kind of coded as a socially acceptable way to talk about it. So it's really empowering to have access to that both the narrative and for the youth who are reading it. We're gonna have access to that narrative

>> Atia: I think you're right, and I think that's why we're seeing a lot of adults reading YA. I mean, I love YA right now because you're getting so many perspectives that you don't get and quote unquote adult books. You know there's so much more diversity so much more about the world that you want to learn about that you can finally read about in books that you don't often see in the adult fiction market.

>> Brian: Yeah, and why is actually becoming a little more open to heavier subjects. But do you think that there needs to be more global subjects, like such as "A Land of Permanent Goodbyes", where we're talking about something, that's a widespread issue. You know, this affects us all.

>> Atia: I would love that. In fact, I write my books knowing full well that not everyone wants to read more about things that are going to bring them down about what's going on in actuality, what's going on in our lives. I know that sometimes people, you know with my first book, The Secret Sky, it goes into the mind of youth and how they're easily manipulated into fundamentalism, something that we've seen in Afghanistan and all over the world. And we're seeing here, too, with different ways. You know, we're seeing a lot of young people joining these right wing neo Nazi movements, and it's because their minds are so easily susceptible to manipulation. So with "The Secret Sky", I wanted to kind of portray that so people can understand why this is considered America's longest war and with "The Land of Permanent Goodbyes"... My original career was as a journalist, so on television I could possibly at the most give you a two minute story on what I'm covering. If I'm writing a dot com article, I have 750 words max. And that's not enough time or enough space to give someone what they want.

>> Brian: That was gonna be my next question for you, I'm glad you brought it up because I was gonna ask you, basically, did you move from journalism into fiction because you felt like you needed more space to get some of these issues across and in this age of kind of just like, you know, hot takes and kind of like how things can get so polarized on TV and in journalism, like, did fiction offer an avenue for you to just really actually like, find nuance? Because, speaking the way you just said, despite how heavy this is, there's a lot of hope in this book.

>> Atia: That's good to hear.

>> Brian: Yeah, I know there is... I mean, it's almost, like, annoying to the point where I'm like, Oh, my God. But like, you know, it was hard for me to wonder how you could approach this and, like, know so much about this and say like, Well, how you know, because you talk about redefining trauma. This affects all of us, all of us, like, you know, And it's not just physically spilling over into Europe, but like, you know, now it's like the whole immigrant thing is a polarizing issue. So it's hard not to look at the West in general and say, Okay, well, look at these problems that we have compared to these problems over here and you do a good job of not making that comparison antagonistic, you know? But that was a lot of questions at once. Let's go back to the journalism to fiction thing.

>> Atia: Yeah, journalism can be very limiting as a journalist, you know, you meet all these people and you see all these things and you learn all their stories. And and I can't tell you just how desperate people are for people to know what's going on in their lives, for people to understand them and not to see them as the superficial picture that we always see... Oh, Afghanistan - War, Iraq - War, Syrians - war. So, as a fiction writer, I saw this as a fantastic opportunity, especially when I was first given the opportunity with my first book, Secret Sky and now with The Land of Permanent Goodbyes. The issue I had when I first got the opportunity was I didn't have an imagination anymore as a journalist, like my imagination, especially covering war after war just kind of went away, and that's a good thing as a journalist. But when I got the opportunity to write, I really wanted to write this the first novel and then this novel, and then I thought, OK, well, what can I do If I don't have an imagination? How am I supposed to write a fiction novel? Then I thought about I'm like, Well, why can't I just write the truth? You know, this is why it's realistic fiction. Why can't I just compile all the stories of the people that I met and talked to, the things that I've seen into the novel, So I always tell people what you're going to get from me is reality. You're going to get the colors of the mountains that I saw in Afghanistan. You're going to get the sound of the Aegean Sea that I heard When I went to do my research, you're going to get the voices of the people that I talked to. This is why I take it really seriously, mainly because I feel really responsible to the subjects that I'm writing about. I don't want to tell you a story about them that's not their real story and that for them to come back and say, That's not what my life is like. And I feel a responsibility to the readers because the people who want to pick up my book, they want to know more about what's going on. About the situations that I'm writing.

>> Brian: The first thing I did after I read it, I was like Okay, I mean, because I obviously knew the basics. But yeah, it was like a deep dive like into like Okay, what's really going on underneath here?

>> Atia: And I feel really responsible to you, the reader and to the people that I interviewed. So this is why, when I got the okay to write about the refugees, I booked a ticket to Turkey. I booked a ticket to Greece. My only issue was is that I couldn't get into Syria. So luckily we live right now in a world full of technology that I was able to easily contact Syrians or social media, through Whatsapp. And I worked directly with a doctor, a Syrian doctor who was from Raka. So because I have a few chapters in my book based just in Raka, and that's a place that even journalists can't get into right now or back then either. So I worked hand in hand with him. I wrote my chapters. He would go through it, tell me what I had right, what I had wrong. Then I'd rewrite it, have him look through it again. And he was just as committed as I was to make sure the truth came out because he was excited for this to become a book so others could know what was going on. So, yeah, that's basically how I approach my writing.

>> Annie: I just think it's so interesting to talk about the difference between journalism infection, cause I've taken journalism classes where, you know, you want to strip all the emotion out of the facts that you're seeing. To me, that kind of feels like a way to create trauma is to try and, you know, distill everything down to just facts and not allow yourself to feel the things that you're feeling. So I mean, does that did that factor into how you are writing that you part of the truth as writers, we know emotions are very much part of the truth, and the emotional feeling of being in a place is so much part of the experience that are hard and fast journalism that we see every day does not allow for that. Are we all becoming a more traumatized by the way that the news leaves those stories out and leaves those facts out?

>> Atia: That's a great question, because with my first book, I was in Afghanistan and four and 1/2 years in Afghanistan, and then when I was finishing up the book, I was in Jerusalem. I had just moved there, and for me, I did suffer from PTSD that I didn't even realize I did until after I got better, because my husband then pointed out, Yeah, you used to wake up crying, and you don't do that anymore. You used to wake up screaming. You don't do that anymore. But when I wrote my first book, it was a way of just getting it all into the book stories that I couldn't share. So you touched on that perfectly. And then when it came to "A Land of Permanent Goodbyes", I was also in living in Jerusalem. I was actually researching another topic for both. My editors wanted me to write about the Israeli / Palestinian conflict and kind of put a different kind of angle and writing about that. As I was doing my research for that, the refugee crisis was on our television screens, and my son was, I guess, same age as my daughter is now about eight months old, and I'm holding him in my safe, warm apartment, watching these mothers pushing strollers on the sides of busy European highways. Families putting their children on boats, risking their lives, you know, for a life. And I kept thinking of my own parents, and my mother was eight months pregnant with me, and my brother was two when they escaped the first war in Afghanistan of the recent wars. And that was nearly 40 years ago.

>> Brian: The Soviet war?

>> Atia: The Soviet War, Exactly, and I just kept thinking about the decision that they made led me to where I am and holding my baby safely in an apartment as I'm watching these other poor families, making that same decision that my parents made, and I just couldn't stop thinking about it. And I thought, I went my editor. I was like, I have to write this. I can't I can't focus on anything else right now. So when you talk about dealing with trauma in a way, you're right for me. I also thought about the fact that I'm so lucky that I could write this in book format as my friends who were still journalists at the time who were covering it as journalists were given a minute or two on television and again, 750 words for an article, and I was lucky enough to be able to dive in a little deeper. That said, it really does affect you. I mean there wasn't a day that I didn't write my book, that I didn't cry. I mean, some days I had to just close my computer and just say, not today because I had a kid to take care of, and then the next day, I take a deep breath, open up my computer and start again.

>> Brian: You know, it's interesting because you're coming from this journalistic perspective and you wanted it to be so real. And I'm not sure if you took... if your characters are representations of real people or composites that you met?

>> Atia: Composites.

>> Brian: So there's still this element of imagination, and yet it is very riel, and something that strikes me is very important about fiction in general. But especially for your book. Is that, like you say in your book, these crises or these wars or what have you, there often viewed through the prism of the government. And, like we judge people that live in these countries through the prism of these governments and these or Isis, whatever you want to call it, you know these organizations.

>> Atia: People in power.

>> Brian: People in power that are controlling other people but you represent these humans in ways you imagine them as humans that you know, it's like, Oh, yeah, we're all the same. These people are just fleeing from a place just as all of us would. And so that's where I think the imaginative power is so important. And I'm wondering if there was like an element more than just wanting to say This is really what's going on Like I wanted to be realism, like and going back to what Annie said. It's like the emotions you've experienced, some of them. But you have to imagine what you were like, what it would be like. And it's hard for a lot of people that don't maybe get on board with some of these issues that are very important. I guess it's the nice way to put it. Or don't think there is important. I'm not sure if, like when you were writing this book, was there any desire to maybe not change minds but get people to open up their own imaginations. Even though you were trying to represent something that was really you know, does that does that make sense?

>> Atia: Yeah, yeah, a couple things. So again, when you talk and you interview these people who have gone through such traumatic events and they're willing to talk to you, they tell you everything. They open up their hearts, they open up their lives and they don't hide it. Oftentimes, especially with the Syrians, they would say Just don't put my name into it. So if you look at my acknowledgments, there is probably, I think, just to Syrians that I could think because they were like, Yes, you can use my name because everyone else was afraid for their families back home in the second that you give them the okay, Don't worry. No one's gonna know it's you. They tell you everything. So sometimes I don't have to imagine the emotions. But sometimes there are ways of putting in the interviews as thoughts and compiling it. When I do composites of character is, you're right. And to blending into this fiction that we see the second part of your question was?

>> Brian: Well, basically, yeah, because I do think there are people who have you know, this right?

>> Atia: If I'm trying to change their minds.

>> Brian: Yeah, and I can crystallize it as like, you know, they view it as no, these people are trying to get into our country and they all represent a bad thing. But it's so black and white.

>> Atia: And I would be lying if I said no, this isn't to change people's mind and it's not necessarily to change their minds as much as it is for them to open their eyes. And I was really lucky that "A Land of Permanent Goodbyes" was recommended by both NPR and Fox News, which was for me like, Whoa, but Dana Perino read my book. She put it originally on Instagram, and then she had it on her show. One of her shows, the five and recommended it again, and a bunch of people just on Dana Perino's recommendation, thankfully, picked up the book.

>> Brian: I'm more worried about you than them in this case.

>> Atia: What was was amazing about it is that I received messages from Fox News viewers who picked up the book because of her recommendation and said that I read your book and it changed my perspective on you know, the refugees.

>> Brian: That's awesome.

>> Atia: And that was amazing. I'm sure some of the people may have picked it up and said, Oh, you know, this is Well, I'm not gonna read this, but there were a handful of people that responded and then reached out to me, and I felt really I felt really good about that. And I go back to the saying that, you know, I tell people, is that you know, fear. It's human nature to be afraid of things that you don't know. It's absolutely human nature. That's what it is. The thing is, is when we try to understand that if we try to like if we're afraid of refugees and we go out and speak to someone and find out that they're a refugee and find out about their lives or pick up a book or try to read something that isn't propaganda against them, we learn more. That's understanding. And that understanding often turns into empathy. So you go from fear to empathy, so wanting to help in some way in somehow. And that doesn't mean, you know, flying to Greece. It could just mean smiling at someone or stopping someone who's hateful from saying something hateful. Those little trickles make a huge effect in our world, I believe. But if people who are afraid don't try to find some way to find understanding that fear often turns to hate, and that's what we're seeing right now all over the world, Unfortunately. So I hope, if my book, you know, if only a handful of people read it and a few of those people out of that handful can have a mindset changed, which has already happened. I'm happy that I wrote it.

>> Brian: Yeah, yeah. No, I, uh, and not to be too partisan about it, but I wish you would write one about the southern border now (laughter), because it's, you know, it's a mirror image of what's going on over there. Different circumstances, different people. But people fleeing from something that's outside of their control.

>> Atia: Human beings all doing the right thing, all trying to save their families and not breaking the law. I mean, this is the missing conception that I see often times for this people again, people who are fearful who become hateful is they don't try to understand the situation. These people are coming to the border. They're seeking asylum, literally following the law. And again, I hope that if someone can read this about the Syrians, they can try to associate this with what we're seeing on the border in America and just realize this is humanity. These are human beings. And if it's them today, you never know if it's gonna be us tomorrow. My parents never thought that their lives would be turned upside down. I mean, they had amazing lives in Afghanistan. I mean, unfortunately, most people only know Afghanistan now as this country of war. But when my parents were living there it, Kabul was cosmopolitan. You know, they had our beautiful Russian opera house, my dad went to the German school, had an uncle who went to the French school. It was just It was a cosmopolitan city, and then one day it changed.

>> Brian: Sounds like a little Beirut, you know?

>> Atia: Yeah. Syria. I mean, okay, our governments may not have gotten along, so we have always assumed Syria was this third world country. But it was not, you know, it was an amazing country. Yes, it had its issues. We have our issues. Every country has its issues. But Syria had, you know, they had people going universities, doctors, lawyers. It was a beautiful country. And adding to that, you know, we look at refugees going to Europe and we look at America only accepting about 18,000 Syrians since the start of the Civil War, which is our loss honestly, because this society has such great minds that could really influence our society in a positive way. And we have the opportunity being so far away to cherry pick the best of the best. The best engineers, the best doctors, you know, we could bring them here to help us in the ways that we need help. But we haven't done that, and we're not doing that. And that's really unfortunate for us and them.

>> Brian: Yeah, I was wondering if we had any questions from you guys out there. Okay, so how do you balance staying engaged, but protect engaged with the issue with the issue but protecting yourself from what's going on?

>> Atia: Oh yeah, that's a really good question, and it's difficult. It's a difficult question, and it's a difficult thing to do. To be honest, I often talk about how empathy can be really painful, trying to help or trying to get involved in really like blood, sweat and tears. It could be so draining. But by doing that, it's also such a powerful thing because if you don't have that anymore, I feel like something starts to die inside of you as well. 

That said, there are days that you just need a break, you know? That's why when I said sometimes I would have to just close my computer and you're talking about, you know, being a person of color and having to fight that fight. You're literally fighting that fight every day, and that is absolutely draining. And I think we're also living in a time now that, you know it helps when someone else is trying to help with that fight for you. You know, I sometimes I'm now luckily, as devastating as certain situations are today, especially when we look at the American political landscape, it's been helpful to see friends who I never knew as people who speak up, you know, they lived their comfortable, privileged lives now, suddenly speaking up and I go out and I thank them because I often say, you know, you saying this now has a tremendously bigger effect, then, you know, see if I defended Muslims or if you defended, you know, people of color when you see it from someone coming from privilege like their voice in a waste, seems to resonate more with those that need to hear it. 

And it's good to see more and more people doing that. And, you know, hopefully the more and more they could do it, the more and more you can take a break every now and then. But unfortunately, I mean, the fact of the matter is, it's this fight that it's gonna be for the rest of your life, the rest of our lives. It's just right now. It's more intense than ever. I feel I got a whole lot more grays. I've always said that running from bullets and bombs as a journalist was much easier than writing a book. It was just something more stressful about this because you know it's gonna be permanently there.

>> Brian: My God, I think you just justified my life. (laughter) I'm not sure if that's true, but I guess you've been through it. Does anyone else have a question? Yeah, So the question is that because of the book is told from the vantage point of Destiny, is Destiny of force that can change the fate or what happens to the characters, correct?

>> Atia: Yeah, That's a great question, actually, because, uh, Destiny can oftentimes be, you know, misconceived as fate. So I specifically chose Destiny because I want the characters to control Destiny and Destiny. Can I actually read the first...

>> Brian: I would like that. And I'll just add that I looked up like every one of the words you use just because, like, Okay, I get it, But yeah, go ahead. I like that.

>> Atia: This leads to this, and it's a short one

================

A narration of Destiny from A Land of Permanent Goodbyes by Atia Abawi

================

>> Atia: That was a good segue into that reading. Thanks.

>> Brian: Good. So the question is basically did four and 1/2 years in Afghanistan prepare her for her time in Greece? Yeah, as compared to a war zone to a refugee crisis with with regards to Afghanistan in Greece, respectively.

>> Atia: Yeah, great question. Emotionally, yes, because I say this When I first arrived in Afghanistan in the beginning of my four and 1/2 years there was about a four week period where I fell into a deep depression. Mainly because I'm driving around a city that I heard about and it was beautiful, like the stories that I was told. And here I'm seeing these people suffering. I'm seeing the city that was torn apart. You're seeing children on the street, you know, just victims day after day after day. And I just slumped into this depression thinking, This is horrible. This is sad. And then one day I literally just slapped myself out of it, and I thought to myself, I'm being so selfish. I am so selfish right now that I am depressed over something that I can get out of and that they can't. Then I thought to myself, Well, I have such an opportunity right now as a journalist for CNN at the time, and then NBC News later, to be able to do more for them, and that meant talking to them to try to get their voice out there because people who are suffering they're not looking for handouts. They're looking for understanding. They want people to understand what they're going through. And I had such an honor to be able to be that person for them, even if it be on a minute level as a journalist. And then I felt the same way going to the camps in Greece, meaning that refugees in Turkey, yes, my stomach song, my heart sunk. But at the same time, I get thinking about what an honor it is to meet these people who are willing to talk to me and give me a way to try to tell their story. Even if it's just a little drop in the ocean. Did that answer your question?

>> Brian: Okay. Yeah. We're getting the sign. Thank you, everyone for participating. And thank you Atia for joining us.

>> Atia: Thank you. And thank you to Fall For The Book. I'm so excited to be here. It's very cool to have this conversation.

>> Brian: Thank you. Okay, that's it for today's episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe in review on whichever platform you're listening. You can get in touch with us at Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @animalriotpress or through our website animalriotpress.com. This has been the 39th episode of the Animal Riot Podcast brought to you by Animal Riot with me, your host Brian Birnbaum and featuring a Atia Abawi. Transcripts for our deaf and hard of hearing animals are provided by Jonathan Kay and we're produced today by Annie Krabbenschmidt, without whom we'd be merely three of Shakespeare's 1000 monkeys banging on a typewriter.