By Riley Harker
Emily Raboteau, author of “Searching for Zion,” visited on Tuesday, Nov.ember 16 for a Q&A and a reading open to the public in Isaacs Auditorium.
Raboteau read from her book “Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora,” which junior Creative Writing major, Nala Washington described as “courageous, curious, and complex.” A hybrid nonfiction work published in 2013, “Searching for Zion” took Raboteau on a 10-year journey as she traveled through Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana and the American South interviewing, researching, and writing about what it means to be faithful to Africans and those of African descent.
Raboteau’s visit was the last author visit of the Writer’s Institute’s Seavey Writers Series for the semester. Three more authors visits will occur in the spring semester to wrap up the series. “I think it shows us that it can be done, and it can be us. It gives us a broad range of writer’s experienced voices. We have poetry authors come in, we have fiction, nonfiction, so it shows us the diversity of the field and it shows us that it’s an attainable goal. I really appreciate the wide range it gives us,” student Maggie Mauro said of the Seavey Writers Series visits.
During her reading, Raboteau gave the many English and Creative Writing majors in the room incite on writing creative non-fictions and literary journalism. She gave tips on interviewing sharing that people are often more perceptive to be interviewed and to share their story than one may think.
Celia Lansing said of the experience, “Not only does it open us up to this world of diversity within writing that we don’t usually experience when we stay in our little niches, but also the format where we get to hear an author read their work, we understand the deeper meaning that they intended behind it.”
Raboteau also briefly discussed her first book “The Professor’s Daughter” as well as her plans for a forthcoming book called “Lessons for Survival” which will be a collection of essays focusing on contemporary issues such as climate change and race.
