It is often the hero of the story who risks her or his life in order to save somebody, but the roles are reversed in Z.P. Dala’s new book. She has risked her life in order to publish The Architecture of Loss so people around the world can experience what she has witnessed.

At 7 p.m. today, Dala will read from the book at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St., telling the story of a mother separated from her daughter who was able to rekindle a relationship thought to be gone forever.

Dala, of South Africa, will read from numerous sections that show the mother’s and daughter’s points of view. She will also read from the author’s note in which she tells why she wrote The Architecture of Loss. The novel can be somber, but it has a underlining hopeful tone throughout its pages.

“The idea of a child being separated from her mother, because her mother chooses to be an anti-apartheid activist, was something I had read and also spoken to many people who had given up their children during the struggle,” Dala said.

The Architecture of Loss takes place amid the anti-apartheid movement, which sought to bring down a system based on segregation and discrimination in South Africa. The character Afroze Bhana is a victim of apartheid who represents many real-world victims. Only when she returns to Brighton to visit her gravely ill mother, Sylvie, are the two able to reconcile their estranged relationship.

“This particular novel came about because I’m a psychologist by profession, so I was consulting with some people in old-age homes,” Dala said. “It began to emerge that there was one particular patient of mine who was a very strong anti-apartheid activist. She had fought, and been jailed, and been exiled in different countries like Angola and places like that. After talking to her and getting her story, I felt that I needed to write her story because she was very much forgotten.”

Dala was chosen to read at Prairie Lights because she is a former resident in the International Writing Program. Kathleen Johnson, the Prairie Lights events coordinator, sees Dala as a brave, “socially conscious” writer.

“[She is] known for her bravery in surviving an assault after a public literary event where she mentioned admiring the work of Salman Rushdie,” she said. “She was forced off the road and hit in the face with a brick. The Islamic community elders in South Africa pressured her to be committed to a mental hospital. Dala is also, by the way, a psychologist and a physiotherapist herself.”

IWP Director Christopher Merrill described Dala as someone with “acute political sensability.”

“[Dala] has a whole range of angles of vision and skills that become part of her writing,” he said. “In this novel, she finds a way to write about material that has for all intents and purposes remained hidden and to bring it to the surface, making it a really important read.”

Z.P. Dala

When: 7 p.m. today

Where: Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque