Kurt Andersen and Congolese novelist Emmanuel Dongala look at the lives and work of composers, writers, and musicians who left their native homelands and sought refuge in the United States.
Dongala was born in the Congo Republic and educated in the United States and France. In 1997, civil war in the Congo forced him to leave his job as Dean of Students and Chair of the Chemistry Department at the University of Brazzaville. Two of his novels have recently been translated to English:Little Boys Come From the StarsandThe Fires of Origins, and he is the president of the Congolese PEN Centre. Dongala is now a visiting professor in chemistry at Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
(Originally aired: April 28, 2001)