88 Cups Of Tea With Yin Chang

Atia Abawi is an author, foreign correspondent, and award-winning journalist. Born a refugee to Afghan parents in West Germany and raised in the United States, Atia has reported on war, conflicts and international crises in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Egypt, Kenya and Israel. Her first book for teens, The Secret Sky, is a critically acclaimed love story set during the current war in Afghanistan and won an Amelia Bloomer Award. She was also named a Publisher’s Weekly Flying Start, honoring debut novelists whose first book shows success and promise.   In today’s episode, Atia shares the story of her parents’ terrifying journey to find refuge in Germany and why it’s crucial for her to humanize the refugee crisis we see today through her latest novel, “A Land of Permanent Goodbyes”. We discuss the pain she felt day-after-day researching this novel, and why she made the specific choice of narrating the novel through the voice of Destiny. Further into our discussion, we also learn how Atia transitioned fr