Event Details

Date/Time: 

Oct 12 2011 7:30pm - 9:00pm

Price: 

Free to the public. Donations welcome. Doors open at 7 pm.
Books available for purchase. Cash bar.

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90035
ample street parking
between La Cienega and Fairfax

How does a Stanford graduate and native of a small town in Oklahoma find herself attending Yasser Arafat's funeral, sharing a holiday dinner with a suicide bomber's family, tour-guiding Israeli friends around the West Bank, dating a Palestinian from a conservative Muslim village, and being held at gunpoint?

Pamela Olson's "Fast Times in Palestine"Pamela Olsen's gripping narrative titled Fast Times in Palestine doesn't just focus on violence, terror, and social and political upheavals but also on the daily rounds of house parties, concerts, barbecues, weddings, jokes, harvests, and romantic drama that happen in between. Writes Dr. Kenneth Ring, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Connecticut, and co-author of Letters from Palestine, "Part adventure story, part searing reportage, part love story, and wholly absorbing... written with infectious humor, dazzling verve, keen insight, and deep passion. If you want to know what everyday life is like for the Palestinian people, go to Palestine; if you can't, read this book."

Read a Levantine review.

The book will be presented as part of the MENA-X, the Middle East/North Africa Exchange series, in which the public is invited to participate in an open forum at the Levantine Cultural Center. Meet the author and engage in discussion on Oct. 12, 7:30-9 pm (doors open 7 pm), at the Levantine Cultural Center 5998 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, 90035. RSVPs strongly suggested, 310.657.5511 or email eman-at-levantinecenter.org.

More About MENA-X

The MENA-X lecture series is presented by the Levantine Cultural Center every other Thursday and features incisive talks with experts and guest moderators to help us better understand the complexities of life on the ground in the Middle East and North Africa, and among these communities in diaspora.

More About the Author

Pamela Olson was born in Tulsa, OK and grew up in Stigler, a small town in eastern Oklahoma. After graduating from the Oklahoma School of Science and Math, she moved to California to study physics and political science at Stanford.

She graduated in 2002 and wandered around bartending and traveling for a couple of years until she found herself in Palestine. She lived in Ramallah for a year and a half working as a journalist and doing foreign press coordination for then presidential candidate, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi.

In January 2006 she moved to Washington, DC and two years later she moved back to Ramallah and started writing Fast Times in Palestine. See her site.