Balasooriya sits at Lion Feuchtwanger's desk in Villa Aurora. Photo by Carla Seegers.
Sanath Balasooriya, the 2009 Feuchtwanger Fellow, will speak at noon on Thurs., Nov. 19, in the Friends of the USC Libraries Lecture Hall in Doheny Library. He also appears on Wed., Nov. 18, at Villa Aurora in Pacific Palisades. At both events, he will discuss the civil strife in his native Sri Lanka, the conditions faced by the Tamil minority, and his experiences as a journalist and human rights activist.
Balasooriya is president of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association and a member of the Sri Lanka-based Free Media Movement and Journalists for Peace. After organizing numerous campaigns protesting the civil war and human rights violations in Sri Lanka, Balasooriya was blacklisted and attacked by the state-run Sri Lankan media. After incidents that cost the lives of several colleagues, he escaped Sri Lanka and received assistance from the Hamburg Foundation for the Politically Persecuted.
USC event
Thursday, November 19, 2009, 12 PM
Friends of the USC Libraries Lecture Hall,
Doheny Memorial Library, 2nd floor,
Light refreshments available
Admission Free, RSVP to Michaela Ullmann at 213-740-8185 or ullmann@usc.edu for the event & parking by November 13.
Parking: USC Parking Structure X, Gate 3, off Figueroa Street
You can find maps and directions here.
Villa Aurora event
Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 8 PM at Villa Aurora
Admission Free, RSVP 310-573-3603
Shuttle service begins at 7 PM from street parking on
Los Liones Drive, off Sunset Blvd, 2 blocks N/E of Pacific Coast Highway.
Villa Aurora and the USC's Feuchtwanger Memorial Library jointly provide the annual Feuchtwanger Fellowship to writers, like Balasooriya, who face persecution in their native countries. Villa Aurora is the former home of exiled German-Jewish writer Lion Feuchtwanger, and it is now an artists' residence and historic landmark.