From Our Soundbooth | June 22, 2018

In this week’s episode of The Missouri Review’s Soundbooth Podcast, we chat with creative nonfiction writer and University of Missouri assistant professor, Julija Šukys. Julija took part in the Unbound Book Festival at Stephens College this April, speaking on the panel, “Tales from the Archive,” and in an author conversation with fellow writer, Tess Taylor, about archival research. Julija spoke mainly about her most recent book, Siberian Exile: Blood, War, and a Granddaughter’s Reckoning (Nebraska, 2017), which follows her own family history and the story of her paternal grandparents. Julija traveled across the world researching the story of their exile through oral histories, letters, audio recordings, and KGB documents.

Julija received her Ph.D in 2001 at the University of Toronto. She is also the author of Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė (Nebraska, 2012), which won the 2013 Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Literature, and Silence is Death: The Life and Work of Tajar Djaout (Nebraska, 2007).

Interview conducted and edited by TMR Intern Sarah Beard.