(born 1955, São Paulo) is one of Brazil's leading voices in poetry. He is the author of several poetry collections, among them Sky-Eclipse: Selected Poems (translated by Michael Palmer, Guy Bennett, Robert Creeley, and others; Green Integer Press, Los Angeles, 1999); Butterfly Bones (São Paulo, 1996); Outros Poemas (São Paulo, 1993); 33 Poems (São Paulo, 1990). He made his literary debut in 1975 with Bicho Papel (Paper Creature). With Michael Palmer and Nelson Ascher, he edited the anthology Nothing the Sun Could Not Explain : 20 Contemporary Brazilian Poets (Sun & Moon Press, 1997), and has published numerous essays, reviews, and translations. The surprising richness and innovative qualities of his work have been praised by such critics as Marjorie Perloff and Max Winter. He is currently collaborating with Michael Palmer on translating a poetry anthology. Mr. Bonvicino is a judge in São Paulo. He will join the International Writing Program in the middle of October. His participation in the program is supported by the Vitae Foundation of Brazil.
(born 1939, Lome) is director of Edition Akpagnon in Lome, and previously served as consultant for the UNESCO in Paris and as professor of sociology at Togo's Ecole National d'Administration and at the University of Benin. He is the author of the novels La Victime (1979) and Le Miroir (1979) and many important essays. Dr. Dogbe has been writing for many years, since he was a high school teacher; after a hiatus due to political problems, he established a publishing operation, Edition Akagnon, which helps to promote the works of young writers. He holds the doctorate in sociology from the University of Paris, Sorbonne V. Dr. Dogbe has attended numerous conferences in Europe and traveled extensively in neighboring African nations. He is taking part in the IWP through a grant from the U.S. Department of State.
(born 1961, Gdynia) leads the Memory Project of the University of Warsaw's gender studies department and teaches the history of foreign literature. In addition to teaching, her prolific career includes literary commentary, writing novels, and writing and directing plays. She initiated Poland's earliest creative writing workshops. She writes monthly columns for Gazeta Wyborcza, the Polish edition of Marie Claire, and Pani. Her numerous publications include the novel Absolute Amnesia (1995), a fiction collection, Blue Menagie (1997), and monographic studies and a 4-act play, "The Book of Em" (1999) based on the Polish literary figure Maria Komornicka. After being granted political asylum in the United States in 1986, she wrote, directed, and appeared in a one-person play, Hollywood, at the Open Center in New York and took courses in drama, playwriting and directing. She returned to Poland in 1996, where she resumed her active literary career. She holds the MA in literature from the University of Gdañsk. The Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation is providing her support to attend the IWP.
(born 1962, Limerick) has been honored by his countrymen for his abilities to interpret the dynamics of the old/new Ireland. Culturally engaged in a context of nostalgia for a troubled history and for the promise of a brilliant future, he represents the "other voice of the new and buoyant Ireland." His playPigtown was selected for presentation in the prestigious international Dublin Fringe Theatre Festival for October 2000, and he recently took part in the annual Stewart Parker Trust workshop at the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland. His other honors include the special award this year from the Limerick Corporation for "Outstanding Contribution to the Culture Life of the City." Since 1980, Mr. Finn has been involved in cultural communication, as producer for Big L Radio, freelance press photographer, Founder-Director of the Island Theatre Company and the Umbrella Project Street Theatre Company, weekly columnist for the Limerick Post, and actor in over 30 theatre productions as well as television and films. His other plays include "The Crunch" (1992), "Charlie Chaplin's Mother Was an Irishman" (1995), "Nevereverland" (1998), and "The Affair in the Square" (2000). His participation in the IWP is provided by the U.S. Department of State.
(born 1965, Nalchik) is considered a rising talent in Moscow literary circles. Her recently published collection of short stories was nominated for one of the highly rated "Anti-Booker" awards in 1999 and received critical acclaim. Her stories have received awards in two Internet literary competitions, have been translated into Italian and German, and are included in a recent German anthology of the best prose by young Russian writers. Her readings on the radio programs "Liberty" and "Resonance" are very popular with Russian audiences. Her work has appeared in prestigious Russian journals, including Znamya, Druzhba Narodov, Vremya 1 My, and Strelets. She was educated at the Moscow Literary University and the Moscow Art Theater School; she is a member of the Union of Writers of Moscow. The US Department of State is supporting her participation in the IWP.
(born 1952, Nasarawa) is the national president of the Association of Nigerian Authors and chairman of the Concern Foundation and Savannah Publications Ltd. He is the author of several novels, including Witness to Tears; Trail of Sacrifice ; Innocent Victims; Sunset for a Mandarin, and Golden Apples. Mr. Gimba was previously executive director of the Union Bank of Nigeria and permanent secretary in Nigeria's Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. He holds a master's degree in economics from the University of Cincinnati, and has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. He is taking part in the IWP on a grant from the U.S. Department of State.
(born 1956, Nghe An Province) is the Hanoi bureau chief of the HCMC Women's Newspaper. When her stories began appearing in magazines in the early 1990's, the public rushed to read them, drawn by her original style, which is described as "a combination of observation, sympathy, strong feminism, and frankness and great courage in pinpointing social problems." She has written a large body of stories, many of which have been made into films and plays. Her work, which has been translated into English, French, and Japanese, has received major national recognition. Her work as a journalist is also notable for its strength and candor. Ms. Hao's publications include the short story collectionsThe Sea-Savior from Idleness (1991), Selected Collection of Short Stories (1996; recipient of the Vietnam Writers' Union's Five-Year Hanoi Literary Award); Held-Back Laughter (1998); The Owl's Sleep (1999; for young adults); The Green Goddess (2000; for children) and Horror Stories and The Devil's Night Party (forthcoming this year). Her participation is supported by the U.S. Department of State.
(born 1963, Singapore) is a media services specialist with the educational technology division of Singapore's Ministry of Education, and teaches English and literature at a leading junior college. She is the author of the poetry collections My City, My Canvas (1999) and Crossing the Chopsticks and Other Poems (1993). Her work has appeared in major anthologies of the region, including New Voices in Southeast Asia and Cambridge University's The Calling of the Kindred. She is the recipient of awards for poetry and short story competitions at the National University of Singapore, and a scholarship for advanced studies from the Ministry of Education. She holds the MA in English literature from the National University, and a diploma from the Alliance Francaise. Her play "The Lift" was performed in Singapore in 1991 and chosen for a brief reading at the 3rd International Women Playwrights' Conference in Adelaide, Australia. Ms. Heng has also translated plays from Mandarin. With Anuar Othman, she is a recipient of the Iowa Fellowship awarded by the Singapore National Arts Council.
writes under the pen name Hwang JiWoo. He is professor and chair of the Department of Playwriting at the Korean National University of Arts. He led a new wave of deconstructionist poetry in the 1980s, which was part of the new "rhetoric of resistance" in Korean literature. His subsequent work is described as embodying a native spirit, with its Korean Zen Buddhist traditions interwoven with paradox, vitality and wit. He is the author of six poetry collections, among them Even the Birds Leave the Land (1983), A Lotus in the Crab's Eye (199), I'll Sit Alone in a Darkened Pub (1998); four plays, including A Diary on the Fat Sofa (staged in 1994), Thirty Days in Prison, staged in 1999), and Bride May (2000). Hwang Jaewoo studied aesthetics and art history at Seoul National University. His education was interrupted by a forced enlistment in the army following his imprisonment for student activism against the military dictatorship. His work has received numerous national awards, including the Contemporary Literature Prize of 1991 and the DaeSan Foundation Prize in 1999. Recently, he published a play, A Materialistic Man (2003), and a translation of his poetry, Even Birds Leave the World (trans. Christopher Merrill and Won-Chung Kim), is forthcoming from White Pine Press.
(born 1966, Oleh, Edo State) is project director of the Civil Liberties Organization in Lagos and a legal practitioner. His publications include Home Land and Other Poems (Kraft Books, Ibadan), Selected Poems (published as a bilingual German-English edition), and numerous articles, including the Annual Human Rights Report of the Civil Liberties Organization. He was educated at the University of Benin and the Nigerian Law School. Mr. Ifowodo is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association and the Association of Nigerian Authors. He is taking part in the IWP through a grant from the U.S. Department of State.
(born 1949, Israel) teaches political playwriting to graduate students in the Theatre Department at Tel Aviv University, and dramatic writing at the Kibbutz College Drama School. He has been a freelance playwright and screenwriter for the major theaters and television channels in Israel since 1984. He was the 1994 recipient of his nation's most important literary award, the Prime Minister of Israel Award for Writers. His plays include "Kastner, a political/historical drama," which received the Best Play of the Year award in 1985 and was produced in Germany; and "Exile in Jerusalem" which was produced by the Royal National Theatre Studio in London, and featured Julie Harris in the title role at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts in 1994. His most recent works include "The Murder of Isaac" (1999), on the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and "The Institution," an ongoing TV series dealing with the life of therapists and their patients. Mr. Lerner's studies in mathematics and physics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem were interrupted by service in the Israel Defense Forces; following the resumption of his mathematics studies, he studied theatre and attended various theatre workshops in London and San Francisco. He is attending the IWP through support from the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation.
(born 1957, Fort Portal) is head of the French department at the Kitante Hill School in Kampala, where he teaches English and French. He is a graduate of Makerere University, and studied at the University of Clermont Ferrand in France and at the CELAB of Bjumbura. His first novel, Cherished Dreams, was published by Macmillan (London), and he is at work on a second novel, Prominent Figures. Mr. Mugarra's work is notable for its control of language, and its humor and instinct for dealing with social issues and mores in a manner appealing to Ugandans and other readers in the Great Lakes region. Two of his plays, written in French, have been performed in Uganda, Burundi, and France. His participation in the IWP is provided by the U.S. Department of State.
(born 1957, Singapore) is the author of two short story collections, Tekad (1984) and 1859 (1999), as well as a selection of short fiction, poetry and essays, Prisma Seni (1995). A fourth compilation of short fiction, Mendonan, is forthcoming this year, along with Mr. Othman's first novel, Sam. He received Singapore's Golden Point Award twice, winning first prize in 1997 for Hashimoto-san. His work has also received recognition in Singapore's National Short Story Writing Competition. His stories have been translated into Chinese and English and anthologized in those languages. He and Heng Siok Tian are appointed to the Iowa Fellowship of the National Arts Council of Singapore.
(born 1961, Buenos Aires) is considered, at 39, is considered one of the most gifted young writers on the literary scene. His film, Silvia Prieto , which he wrote and directed, was entered in the Sundance Festival in 1999, as well as in festivals in Berlin, San Francisco and Munich. It has just been released commercially in Argentina to critical acclaim. His other feature length films, Rapado (Shaved Head; 1992), was entered in film festivals in Rotterdam, Havana, and Locarno. His fiction has been similarly well received, particularly Velcro y yo (Velcro and I; 1996) and Rapado (1992). His other publications include A Book ABout Kuitca, Thirty-Four Short Stories (1993). The IWP has hoped for his participation for several years, and he is taking part in the program this year through a grant from the U.S. Department of State.
(poet, playwright, India; born 1954, Bangalore) is the author of four books of poems in Kannada; eight plays which were staged and published; two books on literary and theatre criticism, and two books of poetry translations. H.S. Shiva Prakash has taught English in several colleges in Karnataka, and is currently English editor for Indian Literature at the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi. His poetry, plays, and translations have received awards from the Karnataka Sahitya Academy, and the productions of several of his plays have received national recogntion in India. Prof. Shiva Prakash has been actively involved in workshops for young playwrights and poetry translation, and his lectures on Indian theatre have brought him to Berlin, Cambridge, and the Nehru Centre in London. His most recent works include the play "Shakespeare's Dream Ship," anthologized in Same-Sex Love in India (St. Martin's Press, 2000). He earned the Ph.D. from Bangalore University in 1998. His participation in the IWP is supported by the University of Iowa.
(poet, essayist, literary historian, Poland; born 1962, Ostrow) is assistant professor of Polish philology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, and a literary critic and commentator for the most prestigious Polish cultural magazines. He also provides regular commentary over the Polish national radio and television. Mr. Sliwinski was a founder and editor-in-chief of the literary monthly Format. He has written numerous essays and monographs on Polish contemporary literature; his critical collections include the books Tadeusz Dolega Mostowicz (1994) and Counterpoint: Talks on Books (1999); in process of publication is a book co-authored by Agata Legezynska, Polish Poetry After 1968. He edited Reading Zbigniew Herbert (1995) and Boredom in Culture (1999). He has taken part in many conferences in Europe; this is his first visit to the United States. He holds the MA in Polish literature and has taken doctoral studies in sociology; he is currently interested in the sociology of literature, particularly the relationship between literature and the Internet. The U.S. Department of State is subsidizing his participation in the IWP.
(novelist, Burma; born 1957, Innwa) made her literary debut with the short story "A Little Sarong" in 1984, and has gone on to write over a dozen novels and four collections of short fiction and long short stories. Her first novel A Timid "What Can I Do for You" is a study of market vendors in Upper Burma, and her subsequent works have explored the lives of women, children, and urban and industrial workers in Myanmar. Her 1993 novel Emerald Green Blue Kamayut, depicting the urban poor, received Myanmar's National Literary Award. Her work has been put to the service of her country's most pressing societal needs; a play she wrote for the nongovernmental Population Service Centre in 1996 popularizes the use of iodine salt for goiter problems. Ms. Yee conducts lecture tours all over Myanmar. Her works have been translated into Japanese and English. She hold a BS from the University of Mandalay and a diploma in librarianship from the University of Yangon. She is taking part in the IWP through a grant from the Burma Project of the Open Society Institute. She writes under the name Nu Nu Yiy Inwa.
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