Ironbound & Sanctuary City - by Martyna Majok (Paperback)

About the Book

"Two compelling, uncompromising plays about the immigrant experience by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Cost of Living. With humor, grace, and an unsentimental eye, Martyna Majok explores the challenges immigrants face as they strive to carve out a place in a harsh and often indifferent America. In Ironbound, Darja, a Polish immigrant, negotiates the terms for her future at a rundown bus stop in New Jersey. Over the course of 20 years and three relationships, Darja's initial search for love becomes eclipsed by her desire for security and survival. In Sanctuary City, two undocumented teenagers seek refuge in each other and make a pact to stake their claim in America together. But as their experiences and opportunities diverge, their bonds begin to fray, and each must make a difficult choice about what they are willing to sacrifice for their dreams"--

Book Synopsis

Obie Award for Playwriting -- Sanctuary City

Two compelling, uncompromising plays about the immigrant experience by the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright of Cost of Living. With humor, grace, and an unsentimental eye, Martyna Majok explores the challenges immigrants face as they strive to carve out a place in a harsh and often indifferent America.

In Ironbound, Darja, a Polish immigrant, negotiates the terms for her future at a rundown bus stop in New Jersey. Over the course of 20 years and three relationships, Darja's initial search for love becomes eclipsed by her desire for security and survival.

In Sanctuary City, two undocumented teenagers seek refuge in each other and make a pact to stake their claim in America together. But as their experiences and opportunities diverge, their bonds begin to fray, and each must make a difficult choice about what they are willing to sacrifice for their dreams.

Review Quotes

"If Martyna Majok's talent weren't so impressive and her subject so imper-ative, it would be easy to leave her in peace with her Pulitzer. But the Amer-ican theater needs her sensibility right now . . . Majok has made it her mission to bring to the stage those characters who historically have played a subor-dinate role in the theater--the name-less, faceless workers who are hanging on by a thread." --Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times

"A knockout . . . You seldom see plays that are both harsh and wonderful, but that is the balance that Majok strikes in Ironbound." --Nelson Pressley, Washington Post

"A quietly gripping play . . . Majok's perceptive drama, Ironbound, with its bone-dry humor and vivid characters, illustrates how vulnerable people like Darja are hostages to the vagaries of chance." --Charles Isherwood, New York Times

"In Sanctuary City, America is in the background, and it threatens to take control of the story at any moment. But we understand these two charac-ters because, at Majok's urging, we've taken their timbres into our minds and put them in their rightful places: the unique person over and above the faceless crowd." --Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker

About the Author

Martyna Majok was born in Bytom, Poland, and raised in Jersey and Chi-cago. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cost of Living, which was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. She is the recipient of many awards including the Arthur Miller Foundation Legacy Award, a Steinberg, an Obie, a Lucille Lor-tel, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, a Cham-pions of Change Award from New York City's Mayoral Office, the Lanford Wilson Award, a Lilly Award, and the Hodder Fel-lowship from Princeton University. Martyna wrote the libretto for Gatsby, with music by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett. She has developed TV projects for HBO, and is writing feature films for Plan B/Pastel/MGM and Participant.