When it comes to autobiographical stories of depression, despair, love, hope, displacement and immigration, the authors Roger Cohen and Marc Seraphs of The Girl from Human Street and The Alien: a Letter to Future Self respectively struck a heart-plucking chord. It is quite a prolific skill to alchemize dark subjects as depression, despair and displacement to produce an elixir of love and hope.
In The Girl from Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family, Roger Cohen focuses on the “girl,” his mother and a family's migrational journey from continents (Europe, Africa, America) and a lifetime of brazing through resilience, religious, ethnic and national identity. And the struggles of dealing with loss, adapting, racism, ostracism and war. It is a beautifully crafted memoir of identity and buried truths.
The Alien: a Letter to Future Self by the rather unknown author, Marc Seraphs is a brilliant work of notoriety with it's unique style and powerful punch of hope. The narrative is a tour of the life of an immigrant (illegal alien) earthbound from soaring to his aspirations yet thriving on therapeutic words to deal with depression. Marc found the words for himself and for us all to dream, love, aspire, hope and enjoy the little things in life despite adversities.
