With only a few days to go until the return of the Paisley Book Festival, Scotland’s First Minister has been confirmed as the Chair of a special event which discusses the friendship formed by a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany, and award-winning journalist and author, Chitra Ramaswamy.
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The event, which takes place on 17 February, will see Nicola Sturgeon MSP and Chitra discuss her book, Homelands, which tells the story of the decade-long friendship between Chitra and 98-year-old German Jewish refugee Henry Wuga, who came to the UK on a Kindertransport in the spring of 1939 and settled in Glasgow.
Homelands traverses a century of history, exploring Chitra and Henry’s friendship and interweaving their family histories. It is a story of migration, antisemitism, racism, family, belonging, grief, resilience and – above all – heart.
Commenting on the event, which takes place on 17 February, Chitra said: “I’m absolutely thrilled to be chaired by the First Minister, and look forward to discussing some of the ideas raised in Homelands which I know also hold meaning for her – such as the importance of cross-cultural and intergenerational relationships, the lessons we can and must learn from history, and what it means to belong in a modern Scotland.”
You can get more information and book tickets to the event here.
The festival, produced and delivered by OneRen, runs over four days from 16-19 February, 2023 and features events with the Hebridean Baker, Darren McGarvey (read our interview), Jackie Kay and Michael Pedersen, and Denise Mina and Tariq Ashkanani among others. In a first for Paisley Book Festival, the majority of events will allow those attending to pay what they can, in recognition of the cost-of-living crisis.
For more information and to see the full line up of the 2023 Paisley Book Festival, visit the website.
