Thursday, December 31, 2020

The items below were posted to the original IWP website as "happenings" in 2020.

On NYTimes’ ‘Best of 2020’ is Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother’s Letter to Her Son, the first translated work by novelist and activist Homeira QADERI (’13).

On the occasion of the release of her most recent film, They Planted Strange Trees, documenting the lives of an extended Christian Arab family in the Galilee, a long interview with Hind SHOUFANI (’11) appears in Middle East Monitor (MEMO).

Going strong, with A Perfect Cemetery forthcoming in 2021 in Jennifer Croft’s translation from Charco Press, Federico FALCO (Argentina, IWP ’12) is also the finalist of the 38th Premio Herralde for his novel Los llanos.

Among the 2020 finalists for the distinguished Neustadt International Prize for Literature are two IWP alumni: Sahar KHALIFEH (Palestinian Territories, IWP ’78) and Eduardo HALFÓN (Guatemala/USA; US Study Tours ’11). Congratulations!

On 10/15/2020, the Al Quds/Jerusalem-based Palestinian poet Najwan DARWISH (IWP ‘10) and his translator will be launching Najwan’s new English-language collection, Embrace. (Registration for the Zoom event and a small fee required.)

On the shortlist of ALTA’s National Translation Award for 2020 (prose) is God’s Wife by Amanda MICHALOPOULOU (IWP ’19), translated from the Greek by Patricia Felisa Barbeito.

Nine contemporary American stories were rendered into Russian by a collective of young Kazakhstani translators, working with editor Yuriy SEREBRIANSKY (IWP ’17) at the Translation Laboratory, hosted by American Space & Makerspace Almaty.

Bravo to IWP alumni longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award in the Literature in Translation category: Anja KAMPMANN (‘10) for High As the Waters Rise, translated from the German by Anne POSTEN and Pilar QUINTANA (‘11) for The Bitch, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman.

High as the Waters Rise, the English translation of the award-winning debut novel of the German poet Anja KAMPMANN (IWP’ 10) covers 'the fallout of capitalism’s dependence on oil' ‘in rich imagery and exquisite language.’ Watch her and her translator in conversation on Tues 9/29/20, 5pm CST.

Alumni Hind SHOUFANI  (IWP ’11)  and Golan HAJI  ( ‘13 ) are among the jury members for the new Barjeel Poetry Prize, inviting all poets to respond to 20 works of Arab 20th c art. The competition is open 8/15- 9/30 2020.

And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again, the first English-language international pandemic anthology, features writing by IWP alumni Eavan BOLAND (’79), Eduardo HALFÓN (’11), Shenaz PATEL (’16) and Gábor SZÁNTÓ (’03), among many other colleagues.

Etgar KERET (IWP ‘01) is among the thirty international storytellers commissioned for New York Times’ extravagantly designed “COVID Decameron” issue.

Just out, The Bitch, by Pilar QUINTANA (Colombia, IWP ‘11), translated from the Spanish. Ms. Quintana is also among the current mentors for IWP’s Women’s Creative Mentorship Professionalization Project.

My Village: Selected Poems 1972-2014 (Zephyr Press, 2020), edited by their translator John Balcom, collects the work of the Taiwanese writer WU Sheng [Wu Cheng; 吳晟] (IWP ’80); included is a sample of his Iowa City poems.

Cultural entrepreneurship at its most admirable:Kristian Sendon CORDERO (IWP ’17), book seller, beer brewer, publisher, gardener, Bikol translator, screenplay author and poet extraordinaire on his Savage Mind in Naga City (The Philippines).

As of spring 2020, Africa.com has Shadreck CHIKOTI (IWP ’19) among its 10 top contemporary African writers.

Between July 18 and July 25, the 2020 digital iteration of the Cathay Arts Festival will include free access to two dance performances by Taiwan’s Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, one of them the career retrospective of its founder, the poet, dancer, and choreographer LIN Hwai-min (IWP’70).

 The Atlas of Lost Beliefs, the 8th poetry volume of Ranjit HOSKOTE (IWP ‘ 95), a distinguished poet, essayist, translator, scholar, and curator based in Mumbai, has just come out from Arc Publications (UK).

In the Summer 2020 issue of World Literature Today, Gianni SKARAGAS (IWP '08) writes about returning home to Greece in the time of the pandemic to be "a son to his mother."  

The Slovak poet Mila HAUGOVA (IWP '96) is the 2020 recipient of the distinguished Vilenica International Literary Award.

On 5/24/20, the US Embassy in Moscow celebrated Joseph Brodsky's 80th birthday with a collage of American poets reading his birthday poem "May 24, 1980" in the poet's self-translation. Chris Merrill, one of Brodsky's students, is among the readers.

Véronique TADJO (IWP ’06) discusses the renewed interest in publishing rights control among Francophone writers in Africa.

The lovely poem-a-day for May 14, 2020, “Journey,” is by the nomadic Lidija DIMKOVSKA (IWP ’05), translated from the Macedonian by Ljubica Arsovska and Patricia Marsh Štefanovska.

On LitNet, novelist and physiotherapist ZP Dala (South Africa, ’16) writes about touching people with her words, and with her hands, in the time of COVID.

To mark Ireland’s corona-cancelled Leaving Cert graduation festivities, the poet Tom McCARTHY (IWP ’78) reads Paul Durcan’s elegy to side lines, “Sport.”

Over at Harvard Review, poet Mary jo Bang glosses her translations from the German of Matthias Gőritz (IWP ’03).

Alumni Usha K R (‘11) and Vivek Shanbhag (’16) in conversation earlier this year at the Bangalore International Center about fictional renderings of their hometown.

The word is reaching us that the luminous Irish poet Eavan BOLAND (IWP '79, '09) has just died at home in Dublin. May the earth be light for her.

A wide-ranging  NYTimes Opinion piece on the use of pandemics--in novels, in history, and in the now--by Orhan PAMUK (IWP '85).

Daily life splinters from Berlin by Esther DISCHEREIT (Germany, ’17) are translated into English at LiteraryTranslations2020_cross-language infections.

In the guise of a book review, a hard-hitting essay in Dawn on authoritarian populisms in Asia, Europe, and the US by Harris KHALIQUE (Pakistan, '15, '19).

The work of two IWP alumni is on the shortlist for the 2020 Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize: the poetry volume Jonahwhale by Ranjit HOSKOTE (IWP '95) and Paper Asylum, a collection of haibuns by Rochelle POTKAR  (IWP '15).

A thoughtful critical essay about the place of English in the poetry of CHANDRAMOHAN (IWP '18) at Round Table India, a blog "for an informed Ambedkar age."

Read the eloquent tribute to the "linguistic nomad," poet and translator Pierre JORIS  (IWP '87), on the occasion of receiving the tri-annual Prix Batty Weber, Luxembourg's national literary award.

Superb reviews for The Play of Dolls,  Kunwar Narain's classic 1971 story collection, translated from the Hindi by Apurva Narain and Johnny Vater, recently a research assistant at IWP

Kristian Sendon CORDERO (IWP '17) co-edited a special issue of Words Without Borders on writing in the Philippines. Its range of poetry in the country's many languages includes Filipino work of Genevieve ASENJO (IWP '12).

An exhibit about the IWP, co-curated by SHIBASAKI Tomoka (IWP 2016) and TAKIGUCHI Yūshō (IWP 2018) for the Hachinohe Book Center, was recently covered by Japan's most prominent newspaper, the Asahi Shinbun.

A new book of poems, this time in an English translation, by the prolific Ester DISCHEREIT (IWP '17).

Over on  Asymptote, in English and Cantonese, the long poem " The Man Who Lost His Shadow,"  by Hong Kong poet and editor Stuart LAU (IWP '17).

On the long-running Indian culture blog The Middle Stage, Chandrahas CHOUDHURY (IWP '10) casts a new light on women and/in books in India's 19th c literary landscape. 

"The Rose" by Soukaina HABIBALLAH (IWP'19), translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu Zeid, graces the front page of Words Without Borders on this Valentine's Day 2019...