Congratulations to 2023 LANDO Writer of Note Lauren Markham for the publication of her novel, A Map of Future Ruins! She received a LANDO grant for this project one year ago, and went on to secure publication with Riverhead Books.
When and how did migration become a crime? Why does ancient Greece remain so important to the West’s idea of itself? How does nostalgia fuel the exclusion and demonization of migrants today?
In 2021, Lauren Markham went to Greece, in search of her own Greek heritage and to cover the aftermath of a fire that burned down the largest refugee camp in Europe. Almost no one had wanted the camp—not activists, not the country’s growing neo-fascist movement, not even the government. But almost immediately, on scant evidence, six young Afghan refugees were arrested for the crime.