Madison BookBeat

Madison BookBeat


Madeline Uraneck, "How to Make a Life: A Tibetan Refugee Family and the Midwestern Woman They Adopted"

March 01, 2021


Stu Levitan interviews Madeline Uraneck, author of How to Make a Life: A Tibetan Refugee Family and the Midwestern Woman They Adopted (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) on Madison BookBeat, WORT 89.9 FM Madison


Madeline Uraneck is part traveler, part global citizen, having worked, studied or had adventures in 64 of the planet’s 195 sovereign states – a fitting characteristic for the first international education consultant in the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. She’s taught English in Japan and researched globalization in Morocco, studied dance in Sweden and Poland, worked for the Peace Corps in Central Asia, and have been a Peace Corps volunteer in southern Africa. But perhaps her most important journey began and flourished right here in Madison. And it all started in 1994 with the simple act of befriending the cleaning woman in her state office building, a Tibetan refugee named Tenzin Kalsang.


That friendship would blossom into a deep relationship spanning three generations, taking Madeline Uraneck around the world and deep into her own heart.



Airdate - March 1, 2021