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Organized by the Consulate General of Switzerland in Vancouver and EUNIC Canada-Vancouver, the next meeting with the European Book Club will focus on the award-winning novel "Elephants in Our Yard" written by Meral Kureyshi. 

The Book

When her father dies unexpectedly, the young narrator of "Elephants in our Yard" finds her life thrown into disarray. As a member of a Turkish Kosovar family now living in Switzerland, she feels unwelcome in her adopted homeland and struggles to fit in and make connections with others. Memories of her idyllic childhood in the old Ottoman city of Prizren, from which she emigrated with her family at the age of ten, force their way into the present. But the world of her childhood no longer exists, and she realizes that she, too, has changed.

As she tries to find a place for herself in her new country and becomes fluent in her adopted language, she becomes increasingly more estranged from her mother with every new word of German she speaks.

"Elephants in our Yard" is a poignant first novel about a life marked by migration and alienation, sadness and loss, but also by hope and new beginnings.

(Synopsis by Noumena Press)

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The Moderator

Prof. Charlotte Schallié, department for Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria.