Photojournalist B.A. Van Sise traveled the United States for four years, documenting the lives of more than 150 Holocaust survivors with the aim of highlighting their individual experiences and the paths they forged in their new country after World War II.

Originally shown at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, selected black-and-white portraits from the 90-photograph, four-essay book Invited to Life: Finding Hope After the Holocaust are on display in Kansas City for the first time.

Van Sise’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other major national and international media outlets and is also in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

An expert visual storyteller and author of one other book, Children of Grass: A Portrait of American Poetry, he discusses his work on Invited to Life at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, September 27, at the Central Library.