Exile through the eyes of a Pedro Pan

Author Carlos M. N. Eire will visit FIU Monday, Nov. 21, to deliver a lecture about his book Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy.

The lecture and book signing is scheduled for 1 p.m. in Room 140 of the Graham Center at FIU’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Born in Havana, Eire arrived in the United States at age 12 as one of 14,000 unaccompanied children airlifted out of Cuba to Miami in the early ‘60s. This joint effort by the American government and the Catholic Church became known as Operation Pedro Pan.

Photo by Richard A. Messina

Eire earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1979 and is now the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale. His previous memoir, Waiting for Snow in Havana, won a National Book Award and recounts his childhood before and during the Cuban revolution. Learning to Die in Miami tells Eire’s story of rebirth as an immigrant in the United States.

The Nov. 21 lecture is presented by the Cuban Research Institute and is part of the Ruth K. and Shepard Broad Distinguished Lecture Series, the flagship speaker series for the School of International and Public Affairs in the College of Arts & Sciences. It is co-sponsored by FIU’s Latin American and Caribbean Center, the Department of Religious Studies, the Department of Modern Languages and others.

Copies of Eire’s book will be available in English and Spanish for purchase and signing. For information, call 305-348-7266.