Boston College Professor Maxim D. Shrayer will read from and discuss his new literary memoir Immigrant Baggage: Morticians, Purloined Diaries, and Other Theatrics of Exile (Cherry Orchard Books, 2023) at a Boston College event on April 24. Through a combination of dispassionate reportage, gentle irony, and confessional remembrance, Shrayer writes about traversing the borders and boundaries of the three cultures that have nourished him—Russian, Jewish, and American, according to the book’s publisher. Shrayer parses a translingual literary life filled with travel, politics, and discovery—and sustained by family love and faith in art’s transcendence. Each chapter recaptures a moment of displacement and an item of the author’s immigrant baggage—material and immaterial. “Composed in the time of the pandemic, this book is a partial record of my immigrant discoveries, transgressions, and valedictions,” Shrayer said. The BC event will take place at 4 p.m. in Gasson Commons, room 112. Read more in BC News.