What We’re Listening To: Lucette Lagnado and Once Upon a Time

The fantastic Lucette Lagnado on the lost Jewish culture of Cairo:

“I’m so haunted by it. It’s sort of become the core of my life and my research, that once upon a time there was an Arab culture where Jews and Christians and Muslims worked together and socialized together and went to school together. And come the end of the week, they would go to pray in their respective houses of worship.”

–NPR interview, September 17, 2011
‘The Arrogant Years’: An Egyptian Family in Exile

Listen to the full (six and a half minute) interview here, and then come talk to Lagnado yourself on Wednesday night, when she’ll be here for the Closing Night festivities of the Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.