Author Irena Kowal will discuss her novel Displaced at the Concord Free Public Library (129 Main Street) on Thursday, November 10 at 7:00 p.m.

Displaced has resonance today as 12 million Ukrainians are displaced. The novel follows Irena, brought up in the U.S. and her older brother Orest, who was left behind in Soviet Ukraine as their parents escaped during WWII. The two meet for the first time in 1969 Moscow. Interspersed with flashbacks to the horrors of the war, Siberian exile and turmoil of immigrant life, Displaced is a tragicomic blend of historical fiction, fantasy and farce.

Irena Kowal and her husband lived in Kyiv, Ukraine from 1992 to 2005. She is a journalist, author, and playwright. She worked for the BBC Ukraine and has written for The Ukrainian Weekly and the Boston Globe. Her play The Lion and he Lionesst premiered at the National Theatre in Kyiv and her play The Marinated Aristocrat was produced at the Molodyi Theatre in Kyiv and ran for fourteen years in repertory. Displaced is her first novel.