By Ethan Markon | Staff Writer

City of Asylum is the iconic Northside asylum organization and bookstore working to promote freedom of expression and speech. The organization was founded in 2004, housing their first asylum seeker that same year.

The building for the bookstore was acquired 10 years ago, but first opened in 2017. City of Asylum’s parent organization, the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), works to promote freedom of expression and offer asylum to journalists, authors, poets, and artists at risk of persecution.

Since the Pittsburgh location’s inception, City of Asylum has housed dozens of individuals in exile through their residencies. Those in countries facing persecution for a work of art they created, a book they published, or a poem they wrote can apply to the ICORN network so they can get connected to an asylum program and find safety elsewhere.

Alexis Jabour, the senior production manager at the organization, listed some of the reasons individuals might reach out to ICORN. When an artist or writer is targeted by the government, private groups, or extremist groups in their home country, they can turn to the network for safety.

“[An] author might get fired from their job, get pressured to be evicted if they’re renting, receive threats to themselves or their family, get arrested, and thrown into prison,” Jabour said.

“It’s a very hard decision to have to leave your home, so factors build up so that life at home becomes so untenable that they would prefer to flee and go to a new place,” Jabour said further.

Currently the Pittsburgh location has six houses, one of which is a duplex. Overall, the program is housing six long term residents in Pittsburgh, a stark increase from the two resident maximum that were able to be housed in 2018. According to their site, “City of Asylum hosts the largest residency program in the world for writers living in exile under threat of persecution.”

The bookstore and residency program work in tandem, allowing writers to sell their books at the store, while the store holds events that promote and celebrate freedom of expression.

The store holds over 10,000 books in multiple languages and in translation for all ages. The building is an old masonic structure that hosts Jazz Poetry events, Story Club Pittsburgh events, Reel Q World Cinema screenings, among many others.

In partnership with Story Club Pittsburgh, the bookstore’s monthly story slam has been very successful. According to Jabour, “it consistently brings big audiences.” The organization has also partnered with The Kente Arts Alliance, which brings in many events to City of Asylum including three summer concerts.

The bookstore is able to run thanks to a large network of partnerships City of Asylum has forged. City of Asylum works directly with the publishers to obtain many of their books. Publishers like New Directions and Archipelago Books provide many of the translated books for the store.

Additionally, the asylum residency program works directly with local universities including Carnegie Mellon University, The University of Pittsburgh, and Chatham University to provide them with literary resources during both long and short term stays.

The organization’s mix of local and international relations make it a unique space within the Northside.

“(I)t’s this really cool exchange of local and international circles of the world,” Jabour said.

Events are frequently updated on the organization’s calendar and you can find more information about the organization on their website, cityofasylum.org/