Marking Memorial Day, Liner Notes Takes a Poignant and Provocative Look at "War and Place"
Posted Thu, May 22nd 2008, 13:02
N E W S
Marking Memorial Day, Liner Notes Takes a Poignant and Provocative Look at "War and Place"
Distinguished authors, photographers and commentators including Tom Brokaw, Robert Stone and Steve McCurry share personal reflections
May 22, 2008 - Liner Notes, the new literary travel series hosted by Paul Holdengräber, continues to redefine great radio. The newest installment, entitled "War and Place," offers a poignant and provocative global resonance of Memorial Day through the prism of history, politics and personal experience.
From Normandy to Pearl Harbor...Vietnam to Sierra Leone, the fields on which soldiers have battled are a litany of the world's most beautiful and most forbidding places. The trials contested there are woven into our culture, and their powerful meanings, embedded in our greatest art and literature.
In an extraordinary "Algonquin roundtable" of writers who have explored these locations as pathways not only to history but to the human heart, "War and Place" is both spellbinding and spontaneous, capturing the reflections and analysis of nearly a dozen notable guests, including former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, novelist Robert Stone, architect Michael Arad, and photographer Steve McCurry.
The one-hour episode, which airs on Monday, May 26, was selected among the "Editor's Picks" for Memorial Day specials on the influential Public Radio Exchange. It was recorded at the Captain's Table aboard Queen Mary 2 and is presented by Cunard Line.
Holdengräber's guests for "War and Place" include:
•Author and broadcaster Tom Brokaw, sharing memories of his moving visits to Normandy and Pearl Harbor and how they have enabled him to understand the great sacrifices of ordinary people;
•Writer Maxine Hong Kingston, who helps veterans put their memories on paper with "writing and healing workshops";
•Novelist Robert Stone ("Dog Soldiers"), discussing the cultural legacy of Vietnam;
•Former Marine and author Wayne Karlin ("War Movies: Journeys to Vietnam"), sharing stories about soldier/authors on both sides of the Vietnam conflict;
•Writer Dana Sachs ("A House on Dream Street"), portraying the new Vietnam and explaining why Americans are surprisingly welcome there;
•Photographer Steve McCurry, discussing his famous "Afghan Girl" image and sharing what he finds when he travels to war zones;
•Psychoanalyst Emmanuel Kalftal, traveling to Dachau, where his parents met, to find a living memorial;
•Architect Michael Arad, discussing his award-winning design for the 9/11 memorial at the former World Trade Center;
•Paris Review editor Phillip Gourevitch who wrote "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with our Families," reflecting on those who suffered through the ethnic conflicts in Africa; and
•Reporter Deborah George, who takes listeners to post-war Sierra Leone to meet a young girl who will become her daughter.
More information on Liner Notes is available online at www.creativepr.org/programs, or by calling Creative PR at (888) 233-5650. The programming schedule is available online at www.cunard.com/linernotes. For local broadcast times, check with the public radio station in your community.