Uruguay/Bolivia Reading Tour

September 8-16, 2011

students in la paz

 

In September 2011 the IWP embarked on its first reading tour to South America, with all invited participants being Spanish-speaking writers. The first stop was Montevideo, Uruguay.  Workshops and lectures, given primarily in Spanish, included students at The National School of Film, the Catholic University, the University of Montevideo, and the Bi-National Center.  The writers also met with local writers and participated in a reading at the Nancy Bacelo Foundation.  The next stop was La Paz, Bolivia, where the group explored local museums while getting acclimatized to the high altitude.  Subsequent meetings included El Alto for a workshop with students in the Access program, followed by several days at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés for discussions with Creative Writing faculty on pedagogy and intense workshops in Spanish with UMSA students. 

 Both tours were made possible through funding from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State, and the US Embassies in Montevideo and La Paz. 

 

 

Participants

Jennifer Clement is the author of the memoir Widow Basquiat, and of two novels: A True Story Based on Lies, a finalist in the Orange Prize for Fiction, and The Poison That Fascinates. She has several books of poetry: The Next Stranger, Newton’s Sailor, Lady of the Broom and Jennifer Clement: New and Selected Poems. A recipient of Mexico's "Sistema Nacional de Creadores" grant, she is also the winner of UK's Canongate Prize. She was the recipient of a US-Mexico Fund for grant for the San Miguel Poetry Week, which she founded in 1997 with her sister, Barbara Sibley, and the  Olmsted Fellow at MacDowell in 2007-08. Clement’s work has been translated into ten languages.

Eduardo C. Corral is a CantoMundo Fellow. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Huizache, The Journal,New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, and Quarterly West. His work has been honored with a "Discovery"/The Nation award, and residencies from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He has served as the Olive B. O'Connor Fellow in Creative Writing at Colgate University and as the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. Slow Lightning, his first book of poems, was the 2011 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. Yale University Press will publish his book in 2012.

Angie Cruz is the author of  novels Let It Rain Coffee (2005) and Soledad, (2001). Her shorter works have been anthologized and featured in n journals including Callaloo, Indiana Review and New York Times. Her work has earned The New York Foundation of The Arts Fellowship, Barbara Deming Award, Yaddo residency and The Camargo Fellowship. She teaches creative writing at Texas A&M University, and is finishing her third novel, In Search of Caridad.

Directing the Tour:

Christopher Merrill’s books include four collections of poetry, Brilliant Water, Workbook, Fevers & Tides, and Watch Fire; translations of Ales Debeljak’s Anxious Moments and The City and the Child; several edited volumes, among them, The Forgotten Language: Contemporary Poets and Nature and From the Faraway Nearby: Georgia O’Keeffe as Icon; and five books of nonfiction, Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, The Grass of Another Country: A Journey Through the World of Soccer, The Old Bridge: The Third Balkan War and the Age of the Refugee, Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, and The Tree of Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War (2011). His work has been translated into twenty-five languages. He directs the International Writing Program.

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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