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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you, thank you, Karen.

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That was lovely.

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Is Danielle Geller
here, by chance?

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Could you stand for
a moment, please?

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Since it is an evening of
introduction and celebration,

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I just wanted to
note, for those of you

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who did not know, Danielle
Geller is one of the six

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recipients of a Rona
Jaffe Foundation Award,

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which recognizes early career
writers for their promise

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and what's to come.

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And I just want to make
sure everyone knows and we

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can applaud you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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It's an honor to be
asked to introduce

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Julie Iromuanya to you, as
a faculty member in fiction

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on behalf of Aurelie Sheehan,
on behalf of Kate Bernheimer,

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and the entire faculty.

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This was supposed
to happen last year.

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But you'll see in
my introduction

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why there were
some difficulties.

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But to describe
Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

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as a novel about the allure
and the perils of assimilation,

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or as one that exposes
the damage unleashed

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by cultural
confusion is to face,

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truly, the enormity of those--

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what those terms actually mean.

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Given that we are and will
forever be an immigrant nation,

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the challenge to our
collective storytelling

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is in our failure to recognize
that some stories can never

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change.

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And that some stories
must be constantly retold.

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The story of an
arrival, for example,

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is not always just a story
about a difficult journey,

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but the intimate confrontations
that happen once you get there.

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And the struggle with
belonging and trying to belong,

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or being reminded
that you don't belong.

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And this is not
an easy struggle,

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as our new faculty member
will understand and tell us

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about tonight.

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But in telling of
that challenge,

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Julie Iromuanya also
allows us a consideration

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of how we try to answer.

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Listen to this
remarkable passage,

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which is near the end of
the novel, in which one

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of the main characters,
Job, has revealed

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a very important secret.

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It's to a young boy,
someone he doesn't know,

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who's helping him
at the airport.

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And this is the boy's reaction.

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"The boy's face has squeezed
up in confusion, then protest.

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He forced the bag forward,
back into Job's arms.

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And there wasn't
enough English in him

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to piece together the
meaning of Job's words.

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Or it was merely disbelief.

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The boy tried harder.

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He clutched at Job's other
bags, and he rearranged them.

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He wiped away the dust
that had settled on them.

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Instead of merely
setting them on the curb,

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he raced ahead to the airport
entrance lugging all the bags,

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including the briefcase,
with difficulty.

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He believed he had
done something wrong,

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that he was being scolded."

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I think this is a very marvelous
and representative paragraph

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of what's at stake
in Julie's novel.

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What happens when
we don't understand,

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when we cannot comprehend.

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And can only trudge ahead with
our limited knowledge, destined

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maybe to never understand
or be understood.

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I think that's the peril and the
heartbreak of going back only

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to what we know.

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And it might be precisely why I
and maybe lots of other readers

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have thrilled to the
stories of people who

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feel that they have no country.

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And that's how this novel
upends our understanding

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of the so-called
immigrant experience.

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If we think that we've
heard it all before,

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it might be simply proof that
we weren't really listening

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at all.

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This introduction
and this welcome

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of Julie to the U of
A community is late,

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because she joined us last year.

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But her work has
been so celebrated

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that it's taken her all
across the country and abroad,

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from France to Central America.

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And I just found out tonight
her scholarly work is taking her

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to Sweden.

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Mr. and Mrs. Doctor
was nominated

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for two very
prestigious prizes that

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honor first novels,
the PEN/Robert Bingham

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Award for Debut Fiction and the
National Book Critics Circle

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John Leonard Award.

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And Julie capped her
first year with us

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with a nomination for
the PEN/Faulkner Award,

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which is our country's largest
peer jury prize in fiction.

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But we're so glad
to have her return

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to what we hope is now home.

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And I hope that you're going
to join me in saying bienvenida

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to Julie Iromuanya.

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