Events in June 2024
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- Inlandia at the Maloof Artist Series Presents Ellen Estilai and Exit Prohibited
Inlandia at the Maloof Artist Series Presents Ellen Estilai and Exit Prohibited
Inlandia at the Maloof Artist Series Presents Ellen Estilai and Exit Prohibited
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June 8, 2024Saturday, June 8, 2024
Inlandia at the Maloof Artist Series Presents Ellen Estilai and Exit Prohibited
12:00-2:00 PM
Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts
5131 Carnelian St
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91701
Free and open to all ages.
Inlandia Institute, in partnership with the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts, invites you to a very special afternoon with Ellen Estilai, author of Exit Prohibited: A Memoir of Iran, published by Inlandia Books. A book talk is scheduled for Saturday, June 8, at 12:00 PM, at the Maloof Home, Gardens, and Gallery in Rancho Cucamonga, and will include a discussion of the author’s extraordinary experiences living in—and leaving—Iran, accompanied by selected readings and book signing by the author.
Books will be available for sale in the Maloof Store, and may be purchased online at https://inlandia-institute.square.site/ and through Amazon.
Exit Prohibited explores a side of Iran and Iranians seldom portrayed in popular media. It follows Ellen Estilai and her family after the 1979 Iranian Revolution as they attempt to leave Tehran, their home of nine years. At the airport, Ali, her Iranian husband, is inexplicably prevented from leaving. As he confronts hostile colleagues and the Islamic Republic’s opaque bureaucracy, Estilai examines their lives, trying to understand what might have brought them to this point. It is a story of an Iran that is at once welcoming and hostile, progressive and traditional, enamored of and distrustful of the West—an Iran as complex as Estilai’s relationship to it.
Ellen Estilai has spent much of her career collaborating with artists, writers, and agencies to strengthen communities through the arts. She has served as the executive director of the Riverside Arts Council and the Arts Council for San Bernardino County, and has taught English language, literature, and writing in universities in Iran and California. Because Ellen and her husband have been immigrants in each other’s countries, her writing frequently explores the joys and tribulations of the immigrant experience.