Gallery: U.S. Embassy hosts writers in Eastleigh and Dadaab

The U.S. Embassy’s Somalia Unit hosted a reading and lecture tour, under the auspices of University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. Tour participants conducted workshops with Somali youth in Nairobi and in the Dadaab refugee camps from June 9-18, 2009. Four distinguished writers – Christopher Merrill, Eliot Weinberger, Terese Svoboda, and Tom Sleigh – conducted a workshop in Eastleigh, then spent three days in Dadaab, where they visited all three camps and reached nearly 200 young people.

Happening Now

  • Congratulations to our colleagues Jennifer Croft and Aron Aji, who are among those serving as judges for the National Book Awards this year, in their case in the category of translated literature.

  • Ranjit Hoskote’s speech at the 2024 Goa Literary Festival addresses the current situation in Gaza.

  • In NY Times, Bina Shah worries about the state of Pakistani—and American—democracy.

  • “I went to [Ayodhya] to think about what it means to be an Indian and a Hindu... ”  A new essay by critic and novelist Chandrahas Choudhury.

  • In the January 2024 iteration of the French/English non-fiction site Frictions, T J Benson writes about “Riding Afrobeats Across the World.” Also new, a next installment in the bilingual series featuring work by students from Paris VIII’s Creative Writing program and the University of Iowa’s NFW program.

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