Silk Routes Between the Lines

Twelve students, identified by Silk Routes participants through their local projects, traveled to Iowa City in July 2016 to participate in the IWP’s Between the Lines (BTL) creative writing and cultural exchange summer program for young writers ages 16-19 alongside American and international students. BTL Silk Routes included one instructor selected from among Silk Routes participants to teach at the BTL session, and one Silk Routes teacher-chaperone to accompany students and participate in teacher enrichment. The IWP has conducted BTL since 2008, with a bi-lateral structure, Arabic-language or Russian students, paired with American students. In 2014, the IWP conducted its first multilingual session, with Arabic-language, Russian, and American students. It is this model that was used for the Silk Routes session, with twelve Silk Routes students, twelve American students, and twelve students from another region learning from representative instructors.

The young Silk Routes writers lived and studied on the University of Iowa’s campus, attending daily creative writing workshops focused on a range of styles and processes, interspersed with peer-to-peer translation activities and literary seminars that drew on the literatures of all regions represented.

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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