Participants by Genre

Participants: Critic

LAU Stuart 劉偉成
2017 Resident
critic, non-fiction writer, poet

LAU Stuart 劉偉成 (poet, essayist, critic; Hong Kong) forms his English name by combining the Chinese characters for “study” and “arts.” He has published five poetry collections; the most recent, 陽光棧道有多寬 [How Broad Are the Plank Roads of Sunshine] (2015), won the 13th Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature. A publishing manager at Oxford University Press (China), Lau is completing a PhD at Hong Kong Baptist University. He participates courtesy of the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation. 

Subraj SINGH
2017 Resident
critic, fiction writer, journalist, playwright

Subraj SINGH (playwright, fiction writer, journalist, critic; Guyana) teaches at the University of Guyana and the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama, and has a weekly arts column in the Guyana Chronicle.  His Rebelle and Other Stories won the 2015 Guyana Prize for Literature as the Best First Book of Fiction; his play “Masque” won the 2016 National Drama Festival Awards for Best New Guyanese Play and Best Production. He participates thanks to the William B. Quarton Fund through the Cedar Rapids Community Foundation. 

KIM Doyoon
2017 Resident
critic, fiction writer, playwright, translator

KIM Doyoon 김도윤 (fiction writer, librettist, translator, critic; South Korea) is the author of three books and many stories, as well as of opera libretti and scripts for plays. She is also a translator and dramaturg. Among her themes are white-collar crime, ancient legends and history, and hybrid cultures. Kim’s libretto “Vandal Sara” was awarded the Arko Create award, and was recently showcased. She participates courtesy of Arts Council Korea.

YAN Chung-hsien
2017 Resident
critic, fiction writer, non-fiction writer, poet, scholar, visual artist

YAN Chung-hsien  顏忠賢  (fiction writer, poet, essayist, art critic; Taiwan) is also a curator, designer, and director, dedicated to a cross-disciplinary approach that integrates the verbal with the visual, and the traditional with the avant-garde. His 24 publications have won him a Taiwan Gold Book novel award, a Taipei Literature Award, and an Asia Weekly Book Award. He is professor of architecture at Shih Chen University in Taipei. His participation is made possible by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture.

2017 Visitor, 2017 50th Anniversary Guest
critic, editor, scholar, translator

Tim Parks (UK/Italy) is a novelist, essayist, travel writer and translator based in Italy. Author of sixteen novels, including Europa (1997), Destiny (1999), Cleaver (2006), and more recently In Extremis (2017), he has translated works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Tabucchi, Machiavelli and Leopardi. While running a post-graduate degree course in translation at International University of Languages and Media in Milan, he writes regularly for the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. His many non-fiction works include A Season with Verona (2002), An Italian Education (2006), and Italian Ways (2014). His critical work includes the essay collection Where I’m Reading From (2014), The Novel, A Survival Skill (2015), and Translating Style: A Literary Approach to Translation, published in a revised edition in 2007.

2018 Resident
critic, fiction writer

Alisa GANIEVA  Алиса Ганиева (fiction writer, editor, critic, journalist; Russia) is the author of three books, including the novels Жених и невеста (2015), shortlisted for the Russian Booker, which appeared in English as Bride and Groom, and Праздничная гора (2012) shortlisted for the Yasnaya Polyana literary prize (the English version is The Mountain and the Wall ). Her story collection Салам тебе, Далгат! [Salaam, Dalgat!] won the 2009 Debut Prize, to controversy and acclaim. In 2017, Ganieva was a juror for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. A 2012 IWP Resident, she returns to UI courtesy of Grinnell College. 

2019 Resident
critic, fiction writer, screenwriter, translator

Carlos GAMERRO (fiction, translation, nonfiction; Argentina) has authored six novels, most recently Cardenio (2016), a collection of short stories, and a body of literary criticism, as well as translations of seminal English-language literary works including Shakespeare, W. H. Auden, and Harold Bloom.  His own work has been translated into German, English, Turkish and French.  Gamerro’s script for Tres de corazones [Three of Hearts] was made into a feature film in 2007. A 2008 IWP alum, he returns for a teaching residency at Grinnell College.

2019 Resident
critic, editor, fiction writer, performance artist, publisher

Róbert GÁL (poetry, fiction; Czech Republic), a literary editor and publisher, works at intersections of genres and media. His six volumes of philosophical prose have been translated from his native Slovak into English and Czech; he has collaborated with composers, dancers, filmmakers, and visual artists in performance and installation work in Europe and the U.S. His participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Anuar_headshot
2022 Fall Resident
critic, editor, poet, scholar

David ANUAR (poet, essayist, editor, translator; Mexico) teaches courses in creative writing and academic subjects at Colegio Universitario Angloamericano in Mérida. An award-winning author of five volumes of poetry, most recently Alguien hunde mi cabeza [Someone plunge my head down] (2021) and of two collections—one of stories, one of essays—he also translates Anglo-Caribbean poetry. A grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State funds his residency.

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2022 Fall Resident
critic, fiction writer, translator

Hiền TRANG (fiction writer; critic; translator; Vietnam) is an author of two novels, two collections of stories and one of literary essays. Her most recent titles, both award-winning, are Chopin biến mất [Chopin vanishes] (2022] and Giấc mộng lang thang trên đồng cỏ úa  [Dreams of wandering in withered fields] (2018). She works as a book, music, film, and pop culture critic, with columns in major newspapers and magazines, and regularly translates from English. Her participation was made possible by a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

2022 Spring Resident
critic, fiction writer, non-fiction writer, scholar

Silvia HOSSEINI (non-fiction; Finland) is a Tampere-based teacher, literary critic, and media commentator, and the author of essay collections Pölyn ylistys [In Praise of Dust] (2018) and Tie, totuus ja kuolema [The Way, The Truth, and Death] (2021). Hosseini was awarded the Kalevi Jäntti Prize and has been nominated for both the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize and the Toisinkoinen Literature Prize. She participates courtesy of an anonymous donor.

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2023 Resident
critic, editor, poet, scholar, translator

Tammy Lai-Ming HO  何麗明  (poet, scholar, editor, translator; Hong Kong) is the author of a story collection, an academic monograph on neo-Victorian cannibalism and two volumes of poetry; a third volume will appear in 2024. The editor-in-chief of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, the English-language editor at Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, and founding co-editor of Hong Kong Studies, she publishes and lectures widely on Hong Kong literature and culture, and translates contemporary Hong Kong and Chinese poetry. Her own poems have been translated widely. Her participation was made possible by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global.

Hamzah_cropped
2023 Resident
critic, journalist, poet, scholar

Saba HAMZAH سبأ حمزة (poet, scholar; Yemen/ The Netherlands) is the author of the poetry collections تراتيل عذراء [Virgin Hymns] (2012) and حصتنا من السماء [Our Shared Sky] (2021). She has contributed to and collaborated with many academic, artistic, and media platforms and publications, and is the founder of the Yemeni Women’s Archive, a digital space for knowledges emerging from women’s experiences. Her participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

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2023 Resident
critic, editor, fiction writer, poet, translator

Yasuhiro YOTSUMOTO 四元康祐(poet, translator, essayist, editor; Japan) is the author of more than 15 poetry collections, including Starboard of My Wife (translated into English by Takako Lento) and several volumes of poetry translations and anthologies, including Dante Meeting Li Po. His poetry has garnered him an Ayukawa Nobuo and a Hagiwara Sakutaro award, among others. After 30+ years in the U.S. and Germany, Yasuhiro recently moved his home base to Tokyo, where he teaches poetry, organizes poetry events, and contributes poetry criticism. His participation is courtesy the Bureau of Cultural and educational Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.  

 

Oloixarac_headshot
2023 Visitor
critic, fiction writer, playwright

Pola OLOIXARAC (Resident 2010; Visitor 2023)  is the author of the novels Las teorías salvajes (2008), Las constelaciones oscuras (2015) and Mona (2019), all available in English (Soho Press, FSG), and of the collection of political essay Galería de celebridades argentinas (2023). She has written the opera libretto “Hercules in Mato Grosso,” premiered in Buenos Aires (2014) and New York City (2015), contributed articles on politics and culture for The New York Times, the BBC and elsewhere, and is currently a columnist at La Nación. A co-founder and editor of The Buenos Aires Review, which features contemporary literature in the Americas, she was in 2010 named among Granta’s “Best Young Spanish Novelists.” A recipient of the national award for literature from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes, as well as, in 2019, of the British Library’s Eccles and Hay Festival prizes, she had Savage Theories nominated for the 2017 Best Translated Book Award; her work has been translated into 10 languages.. In 2023, she was an Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa.

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Happening Now

  • We regret the passing, on April 11, 2024, of the distinguished Romanian author and critic Dan Cristea, who served as the editor in chief of the Luceafărul de Dimineață cultural monthly. In addition to being an alum of the 1985 Fall Residency, Cristea received his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa.

  • Our congratulations to 1986 Fall Residency writer Kwame Dawes, who has been named the new poet laureate of Jamaica.

  • 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.

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