Oksana Marafioti (nee Kopylenko) is a writer.
Oksana Marafioti (nee Kopylenko) is a writer.
A classically trained pianist, she graduated from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas' Professional Film Crew Training Program, and worked in film before moving into writing. [1] [2] She is the author of American Gypsy: A Memoir (FSG, 2012). Her works have appeared in Slate [3] and Time , [4] and Immigrant Voices Vol.II (Penguin Random House, 2015). She was the 2013 BMI - Library of Congress Kluge Center Fellow and the 2020 recipient of the Picador Guest Professorship Award from the University of Leipzig, Germany. [5] Along with many interviews and panel appearances, Oksana has presented her research on Magical Realism In Soviet Russia at the Library of Congress in 2013 [6] and participated in the C-SPAN panel discussion on race and ethnicity in 2015. [7] In 2018, Oksana founded Lounge Writers, an online creative writing studio that offers classes by award-winning and best-selling authors to help writers of all levels explore and enhance their craft.
The Romani, also spelled Romany or Rromani, colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group who traditionally lived a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Romani originated in the Indian subcontinent; in particular, the region of present-day Rajasthan. Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed by historians to have occurred around 1000 CE. Their original name is from the Sanskrit word डोम (doma) and means a member of a Dalit caste of travelling musicians and dancers. The Roma population moved west into the Persian Ghaznavid Empire and later into the Byzantine Empire. The Roma arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th century. Although they are dispersed, their most concentrated populations are located in Europe, especially central, eastern, and southern Europe, as well as western Asia.
Magic realism or magical realism is a style of literary fiction and art. It paints a realistic view of the world while also adding magical elements, often blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. Magic realism often refers to literature in particular, with magical or supernatural phenomena presented in an otherwise real-world or mundane setting, commonly found in novels and dramatic performances. Despite including certain magic elements, it is generally considered to be a different genre from fantasy because magical realism uses a substantial amount of realistic detail and employs magical elements to make a point about reality, while fantasy stories are often separated from reality. Magical realism is often seen as an amalgamation of real and magical elements that produces a more inclusive writing form than either literary realism or fantasy.
Isabel Angélica Allende Llona is a Chilean writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the genre magical realism, is known for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts, which have been commercially successful. Allende has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author." In 2004, Allende was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2010, she received Chile's National Literature Prize. President Barack Obama awarded her the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Nancy Anne Kress is an American science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo- and Nebula-winning 1991 novella Beggars in Spain, which became a novel in 1993. She also won the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 2013 for After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, and in 2015 for Yesterday's Kin. In addition to her novels, Kress has written numerous short stories and is a regular columnist for Writer's Digest. She is a regular at Clarion writing workshops. During the winter of 2008/09, Nancy Kress was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Alice Costandina Titus is an American political scientist and politician who has been the United States representative for Nevada's 1st congressional district since 2013. She served as the U.S. representative for Nevada's 3rd congressional district from 2009 to 2011, when she was defeated by Joe Heck. Titus is a member of the Democratic Party. She served in the Nevada Senate and was its minority leader from 1993 to 2009. Before her election to Congress, Titus was a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), where she taught American and Nevada government for 30 years. She was the Democratic nominee for governor of Nevada in 2006.
The Romani in Spain, generally known by the endonym Calé, or the exonym gitanos, belong to the Iberian Romani subgroup known as Calé, with smaller populations in Portugal and in Southern France. Their sense of identity and cohesion stems from their shared value system, expressed among the gitanos as the leyes gitanas.
The Romani people are a distinct ethnic and cultural group of peoples living all across the globe, who share a family of languages and sometimes a traditional nomadic mode of life. Though their exact origins are unclear, central India is a notable point of origin. Their language shares a common origin with, and is similar to, modern-day Gujarati and Rajasthani, borrowing loan words from other languages as they migrated from India. In Europe, even though their culture has been victimized by other cultures, they have still found a way to maintain their heritage and society. Indian elements in Romani culture are almost non-existent, with the exception of their language. Romani culture focuses heavily on family. The Roma traditionally live according to relatively strict moral codes.
The Romani flag or the flag of the Roma is the international ethnic flag of the Romani people, historically known as "Gypsies", which form a stateless minority in countries across Eurasia, Africa, the Americas, and Australasia. It was approved by the representatives of various Romani communities at the first and second World Romani Congresses (WRC), in 1971 and 1978. The flag consists of a background of blue and green, representing the heavens and earth, respectively; it also contains a 16-spoke red dharmachakra, or cartwheel, in the center. The latter element stands for the itinerant tradition of the Romani people and is also an homage to the flag of India, added to the flag by scholar Weer Rajendra Rishi. It superseded a number of tribal emblems and banners, several of which evoked claims of Romani descent from the Ancient Egyptians.
Anti-Romani sentiment is a form of bigotry which consists of hostility, prejudice, discrimination, racism and xenophobia which is specifically directed at Romani people. Non-Romani itinerant groups in Europe such as the Yenish, Irish and Highland Travellers are frequently given the name "gypsy" and as a result, they are frequently confused with the Romani people. As a result, sentiments which were originally directed at the Romani people are also directed at other traveler groups and they are frequently referred to as "antigypsy" sentiments.
Cathleen "Cathy" Scott is a Los Angeles Times and New York Times bestselling American true crime author and investigative journalist who penned the biographies and true crime books The Killing of Tupac Shakur and The Murder of Biggie Smalls, both bestsellers in the United States and United Kingdom, and was the first to report Shakur's death. She grew up in La Mesa, California and later moved to Mission Beach, California, where she was a single parent to a son, Raymond Somers Jr. Her hip-hop books are based on the drive-by shootings that killed the rappers six months apart in the midst of what has been called the West Coast-East Coast war. Each book is dedicated to the rappers' mothers.
Steven Alexzander Horsford is an American politician and businessman serving as the U.S. representative for Nevada's 4th congressional district since 2019, previously holding the position from 2013 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the Nevada Senate, representing the 4th district, in Clark County, from 2005 to 2013. Horsford was the first African American to serve as Majority Leader (2009–2013) and the first African American to represent Nevada in Congress. He lost to Republican nominee Cresent Hardy in 2014.
Aria Resort and Casino is a luxury resort and casino, and the primary property at the CityCenter complex, located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It is owned by The Blackstone Group and operated by MGM Resorts International.
The 2012 United States House of Representatives elections in Nevada were held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012 and elected the four U.S. Representatives from Nevada, one from each of the state's four congressional districts, an increase of one seat in reapportionment following the 2010 United States Census. Representatives are elected for two-year terms; those elected will serve in the 112th Congress from January 2013 until January 2015. The elections coincided with the elections of other federal and state offices, including a quadrennial presidential election, and an election to the U.S. Senate. Primary elections were held on June 12, 2012.
It is estimated that there are one million Romani people in the United States. Though the Romani population in the United States has largely assimilated into American society, the largest concentrations are in Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, Southwestern United States, Texas, Louisiana, Florida and the Northeast as well as in cities such as Chicago and St. Louis.
Hungarian Slovak Gypsies or Balshade immigrated to the United States in the late 19th century, many from Košice, Slovakia. They settled in the cities of Braddock, Homestead, Johnstown, and Uniontown, Pennsylvania; Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio; Detroit and Delray, Michigan; Gary, Indiana; Chicago, and New York City and Las Vegas. The Hungarian Slovak Gypsies were a community of settled Roma, and in the United States were well known for playing music for the Central European immigrant communities in which they settled. These Roma were known for playing in cafes and restaurants, the name associating these Romani as Bashaldé was made up in late 20th century, and in Hungary they are called Romungro Romani; portions of them were also known as Romungre. In the early 1900s the Roma in Braddock, Pennsylvania, purchased an entire block of homes, making them the largest population of settled Roma in the United States.
Caesars Palace is a luxury hotel and casino in Paradise, Nevada, United States. The hotel is situated on the west side of the Las Vegas Strip between Bellagio and The Mirage. It is one of Las Vegas's largest and best known landmarks.
Romani people have been recorded in the United Kingdom since at least the early 16th century. Records of Romani people in Scotland date to the early 16th century. Romani number around est. 225,000 in the UK. This includes the sizable population of Eastern European Roma, who immigrated into the UK in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and also after EU expansion in 2004.
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