Middle East Journalist to Lecture on April 16

Author: Suzie Mozes

Stephanie Saldana '00 will return to the Middlebury College campus next week to share her insights after traveling the world. After graduating from the College in 2000, she traveled on the prestigious Thomas Watson Fellowship to write poetry and "fulfill dreams of wandering through ancient cities, hearing strange languages, and understanding world religions" in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria and Spain."

After this year-long excursion, Saldana moved to Beijing to write as a traveling freelance journalist. On September 9, she began a new job in Beirut, Lebanon as a reporter for The Lebanon Daily Star. After only the first few days, she was thrown into the whirlwind surrounding the events of September 11. As a result of the terrorist turmoil, Saldana realized that "when [she] was working, [she] was never scared. Work helped [her] make sense of the world."

Using her work as a grounding force in her life, Saldana has remained in the Middle East to write and "live in a very particular place in a very particular moment in history."

Come join Saldana for a talk and reading on Tuesday, April 16 in Twilight Hall at 7:30 p.m. entitled "God in a Time of War: Poems and Journeys through the Middle East 1999-2002."

Pursuing her dreams, this remarkable young woman treks along a path rarely taken with an awe-inspiring courage. She has stood in the face of political violence, walked the Silk Road and talked to Palestinian refugees.

Her reading and lecture, brought to the College by The Other World Fund and the Religion Department, will provide an exceptionally rare and unique experience to interact with a down-to-earth, unassuming Middlebury graduate who is actually living history.