Circles: Break a Cycle

Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans …twenty and one years later

By Dr. Kendra M. Harris, PhD

Circles: Break a Cycle is a powerful audiobook about Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the wounds that remained long after the floodwaters disappeared.

Through creative personal (partial fiction) narrative, family history, poetry, cultural reflection and social research, Dr. Kendra M. Harris explores displacement, grief, generational trauma, mental health, racial inequality, family relationships, and the traditions that helped New Orleanians survive, dance, love, and laugh. Oh, but what was New Orleans before?

This is not only a story of destruction. It is also a story of resilience, culture, spirituality, music, rhythm, community, and healing.

Twenty-one years after Katrina, Circles asks an important question: What happens when people survive a disaster, but the trauma continues from one generation to the next?

Dr. Harris reminds us that rebuilding a city and healing its people are not the same thing.

“All is not well! There is major work to do! Still. But I’d like to say to the world, we are not broken. Nice try, Katrina!”

Ultimately, the audiobook challenges every listener to consider: What are we carrying forward? What needs to heal? And how can we break the cycle? Katrina is long gone. But the people are still slowly healing—but healing indeed.