2009 Between the Lines

2009's Between the Lines was the first to take place on the University of Iowa campus. Twelve students from Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria joined 76 Iowa Young Writers' Studio participants in our version of "summer camp" -- where writing and literature, not hikes and campfires, are the main focus. BTL students attended morning English-language seminars with their IYWS peers, and an afternoon Arabic-language creative writing workshop (led by teachers and IWP alumni Tarek Eltayeb and Iman Humaydan). They took time out for fun as well, visiting Adventureland (an amusement park) and a bowling alley, among other places.

BTL and IYWS students at orientation. The Stretch writing exercise starts each weekday.
Students experimented with different forms of creative writing at the Arabic-language workshop. Showing off skills at the Arabic-language workshop.
BTL students shared their favorite Arabic-language authors with IYWS students. In this Stretch exercise, students had to create sentences with words that were taped on their foreheads.
Shooting hoops at sunset. For several BTL students, this was their first time in a bowling alley.
It's not a photography mistake...this is what BTL students look like in the funhouse mirror at Adventureland. BTL class of 2009. Standing, left to right: Iman Humaydan (faculty, Lebanon), Christopher Merrill (IWP director), Tarek Eltayeb (faculty, Austria), Zaid Al-Nassir (student, Jordan), Soumer Daghastani (chaperone, Syria), Bashar Al-Sawaftah (student, Jordan), Nael Roby (student, Israel), Ahmad Ezery (student, Israel), Majd Iwidat (student, Palestinian Authority), Bana Aassy (student, Israel). Kneeling/sitting, left to right: Basima Takrouri (chaperone, Palestinian Authority), Irene Ghattas (student, Palestinian Authority), Nadia Tellawi (chaperone, Jordan), Hussein Youneiss (student, Lebanon), Asma Abu Dahab (chaperone, Jordan), Lora Abaza (student, Syria), Nadia El Malt (student, Lebanon), Yara Abou Fakher (student, Syria), Iya Ghassib (student, Jordan).

Happening Now

  • 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 fish-paste English and cheddar-English: a long interview at LARB (Los Angeles Review of Books) about language, politics, and language politics with Burmese poet and worker KO KO THETT (IWP '16).

  • Behind the 2018+ 2019 Nobel Prizes for Literature given to novelists Peter Handke  and Olga Tokarczuk are translators--one key among them Jennifer CROFT, novelist as well as translator from the Polish, Ukrainian, and  Spanish. Congratulations!

  • "Resisting English": at NYRB, Adam Kirsch reviews three decades of the translated work of the Japanese novelist and essayist Minae MIZUMURA (IWP '03).

  • Just out in Beirut, the intriguingly titled ['Laughter as Destructive History'] by the Iraqi poet, translator, and editor Soheil NAJM (IWP '07).

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