Jennifer Steil on unexpected connections between places; on "in between-ness"; on friendship in Yemen; on the Jewish diaspora in Bolivia; on the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan; on living in a permanent state of nostalgia; and on gallons of gin — with TWBC

The Wandering Book Collector

Welcome to the travel/literary podcast The Wandering Book Collector with host Michelle Jana Chan. This is a series of conversations with writers exploring what's informed their books and their lives around themes of movement, memory, sense of place, borders, identity, belonging and home.

In this edition, I speak with the writer Jennifer Steil to discuss her book, Exile Music, a historical novel written from the perspective of a young Jewish girl, who flees Austria in the 1930s for La Paz, Bolivia — a country that offers her family refuge, as the Nazis rise up in Europe.

Jennifer’s two previous books include a memoir, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American’s Adventure in the Oldest City on Earth, on her experience as a journalist in Yemen, and The Ambassador’s Wife, a novel about a hostage crisis..

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The Wandering Book Collector would like to thank the supporter of this podcast:

Abercrombie & Kent — Creating unique, meticulously planned journeys into hard-to-reach wildernesses and cultures.

If you’re enjoying the podcast, I’d love you to leave a rating or a review. To learn about future editions, please subscribe or hit “follow” on your podcast app of choice. Thank you for listening! For more on the podcast, book recs, what books to pack for where’s next, and who’s up next, I’m across socials @michellejchan. I’d love to hear from you.

And if you’ve missed any, do catch up. From Janine di Giovanni to Bernardine Evaristo to Afua Hirsch to Carla Power to Maaza Mengiste to Kapka Kassabova to Sara Wheeler to Brigid Delaney to Horatio Clare to Rebecca Mead to Preti Taneja to Kathryn D. Sullivan to Emmanuel Jal.

All credit for sound effects goes to the artists and founders of Freesound.org and Zapsplat.com. All credit for music goes to the artists and founders of Soundstripe.com

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