(fiction writer, Malaysia; born in Malacca) is associate professor at the Malaysian National University, and teaches creative writing at the Malaysian National Academy. His publications include several collections of short fiction, among them Dunia Belum Berakhir (1989); Datangnya Macam Malaikat (Heinemann Books, 1982); Jeneral (PF 13, 1992). Dr. Othman, a graduate of the Sultan Idris Teacher's Training College in Perak, has written many books on literary theory, creative writing, children's literature and Malaysian literary history. His latest book, forthcoming from Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, is Landas Kreativiti: Penulisa Cerpen. He is actively involved in the regional scene, leading workshops, judging competitions, giving talks throughout Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam. The Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Malaysia is providing his grant support.
is a lecturer of literature and journalism at the University of Vina del Mar, and a columnist for Santiago's leading newspaper El Mercurio. Among his widely published novels are Quién mató a Cristian Kustermann? (Santiago: 1993), Der Schluessel liegt in Bonn (Berlin: 1995), Boleros en La Habana (Buenos Aires: 1995), and El Aleman de Atacama, forthcoming in November. He studied at the University of Chile and the University of Havana, studying Latin American and Spanish literature and social anthropology. He has worked extensively in Bonn and Berlin as a translator, a foreign correspondent, chief editor of the magazine Desarrollo y Cooperación in Bonn, and moderator for a program on Deutsche-Welle TV. He has received the Artes y Letras prize, and the Municipal Prize for Literature from the City of Valparaíso. He is supported by a grant from the Fundación Andes.
is felt to be perhaps the most important young writer in Argentina today. He is editor of the prestigious magazine Pagina 30. The widespread impact of his work is felt through his novels which have been described as "compelling, often moving, meditations" on the influence of North American culture on Argentine society. His novel, Historia Argentina, is a humorous analysis of Argentina's cultural development in the past decade; his new novel Esperanto is scheduled for publication by Gallimard in France, and his short fiction has been anthologized in Chile, Spain, Venezuela, and England. He looks forward to completing his next two novels, tentatively titled Ciencias Exactas and Mambru, while he is at the University of Iowa. The USIA is providing his fellowship.
is a Reader in Commonwealth literature in the Department of English at the University of Poona. His publications include a collection of poems, Slide Show (Leeds: Peepal Tree Books, 1992); short stories, One Day I Locked My Flat in Soul-City (Delhi: Rupa & Co., 1995); plays, The Wisest Fool and Other Plays (Bombay: The Brown Critique, 1996). He has edited several anthologies and books of criticism. He earned his Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Bombay, with a thesis on the attitudes toward love and nature of Whitman and Tagore. He received the Nehru Centenary Post-doctoral Fellowship from the Government of India, and a travel fellowship from India's National Academy of Letters. Dr. Rao is currently at work on a biography of the Indian poet Nissim Ezekiel. He attends the IWP as a fellow of the AT&T Foundation.
is the author of nine novels, one volume of short stories, and one collection of essays. Born in Chile, he lived in Cuba, East Germany, West Germany, and Sweden before coming to the United States in 2000. He was an IWP fellow in 1996, and earned his master’s and doctorate degrees at the University of Iowa, where he now teaches Latin American literature and creative writing and leads a Spanish-language fiction workshop. He also writes columns for La Tercera and the New York Times Syndicate. His work has been published throughout Latin America as well as in Croatia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the US. His last novel, Pasiones griegas, was voted “Best Novel Published In Spanish In 2006” by the National People’s Publishing House of China and the Association of Chinese Hispanists. Currently he is working on a novel to be released in 2008.
is an art historian and journalist whose books on Spanish architecture and art are widely respected in the world scene. She is the author of two novels, En otros ojos ("In Other Eyes"; Alba Editorial, 1996), and The Everlasting Return (in progress), and a short story collection, Anima Animal. Her numerous texts for exhibition catalogs and her books on art history are published in London, New York, Madrid and Barcelona, with editions in German and Greek. She earned the MA in the history and criticism of modern art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; a diploma in international relations from the College of Journalism in London, and is a graduate in journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is a reviewer and critic for the leading Spanish newspapers El Pais and La Vanguardia. She is an IWP grantee of the US Information Agency.
(fiction writer, Russia) has received considerable recognition in international literary circles. He received the Russian equivalent of the Booker Prize in 1993, which led to a workshop on creative writing held in Great Britain. New Directions Books published a collection of stories, as well as The Yellow Arrow; his novel Omon Ra is published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. These books have appeared simultaneously abroad, and include another novel, The Life of Insects (forthcoming in Britain, France, the Netherlands), and a short fiction collection is coming out in Japan, The Blue Lantern. His other works are a fiction collection in two volumes, Tambourine to the Upper World and Tambourine to the Lower World. He is taking part in the IWP through the US Information Agency.
is the author of books published world-wide; two thirds of his fiction has been short-listed for awards, including citations from the American Library Assocation and the New York Public Library, the Choysa Bursary for Children's Writers and the Esther Glen Medal. The author of thirty novels, twenty-three for children and young adults, Mr. Taylor has published three new books in 1996 alone: Circles (Penguin NZ); The Fatz Twins & the Haunted House (Harper Collins NZ), and Nick's Story (Longacre Press). A former school teacher and principal of the Ohakune School, he turned to writing full time in 1985. His first novel Episode came out in 1970, and since then his works have been published in multiple editions by Penguin, Scholastic, and others in Australia, the US, and Europe. He is a fellow of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa.
is one of the most popular writers of Latvian fiction in a country where culture is a major component of everyday life. Her collections of stories include (in Latvian) A Concert for My Friends in an Ash Box (Riga: Lesima Publishers, 1987); A Bestiary for Our Times (Riga: Literatura un Maksla Publishers, 1992); The Apocrypha of Shadows (Riga: Preses Nams Publishers, 1996). Ms. Repse is a graduate of the Department of Art History and Theory at the Latvian Academy of Art, and held a grant from the Austrian Ministry of Education, Art, and Research in 1995. She has been a literary editor for the Labrit newspaper, and correspondent and columnist for two Latvian magazines and a daily. She and Anna Auzina are the first Latvian writers to attend the IWP. She is at the IWP as a grantee of the USIA.
(born in Budapest, 1956) is chief editor of literature and theatre at Hungarian Television (MTV), and as a well-established playwright is regularly commissioned to translate and to stage plays with English-language origins. He received his training in Hungarian language and literature, English language and literature, and comparative literature at Eotvos Lorand University, and held a Fulbright Fellowship at Columbia University in 1992-93. He is a member of the Hungarian Writers' Union and PEN. Mr. Bekes has published ten books, several novels and collections of short fiction and plays. He is supported by a grant from the United States Information Agency.
(born in Perak, 1948) began writing fiction on her return to the National University of Singapore for a literature honours course and after teaching some years in a junior college. The result was a novel, Ricebowl (1984); in 1986, she co-authored a prizewinning short play, The Amah: a Portrait in Black and White. Her second novel, Gift from the Gods, appeared in 1990, and in 1992 she was the first writer to receive the Singapore Literature Prize for her third novel, Fistful of Colours. While studying for her post-graduate diploma in applied linguistics, she co-edited a literature series for secondary schools. She is presently a curriculum specialist in the Singapore Ministry of Education, and has also written teaching materials and several children's stories. Ms. Lim is here on a Fulbright grant through the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.
(born in Lome, 1945) is one of his nation's well known human rights activists. He is head of the division of academics in the registrar's office at the University of Benin, where he previously headed the department of philosophy, and continues to lecture in philosophy. Dr. Kuakuvi teaches the history of philosophy, moral and political philosophy, the philosophy of nature and ontology. He was educated at the University Urbaniana de Propaganda Fide in Rome, and received the M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. He belongs to the Association of Writers of Togo, the Human Rights League of Togo, and the Union of African Human Rights Leagues. He is interested in the American government system and how individual and collective rights are guaranteed and protected; his other interests include African American literature. He is here through the US Information Agency.
(born in Buenos Aires, 1956) teaches Greek at the Jujuy National University and writes essays, articles, poems and short fiction for two newspapers in northern Argentina, El Pregon and El Tribuno. He studied literature at the Catholic University in Buenos Aires and attended a year-long seminar on folkloric literature at the University of Urbino in Italy. He is the author of two poetry collections, Punk y circo (1989) and Golja (1995); five short story collections, among them Dia de pesca ("A Day of Fishing", 1990); Cuarteto en el monte ("Wild Country Quartet", 1993); and El mejor tema de los '70 ("The Top Hit of the Seventies", 1996); and an award-winning theatre work, Chingoil Compani, Surinam ataca (1996). He has appeared in more than ten anthologies. Among his honors are the first prize for Dia de pesca from the Banco de Accion Social, the 1996 "Iris Marga" prize for drama, and numerous awards for his books for children. He also translates from classical Greek and Latin; in addition to his native Spanish, he speaks German, Italian, and Quicha. His participation is supported jointly by the Fundaci-n Antorchas, the US Information Agency, and the IWP.
(fiction writer, poet and children's author, Malawi; born in Ntcheu, 1971) is considered one of his country's bright and promising writers. His children's novel, Fleeing the War, won the British Council Write a Story competition and was published by Macmillan Malawi in 1996. He is presently editorial assistant for educational materials at the Malawi Institute of Education, acting president of the Malawi Writers Union, and was chairperson of the 1997 Malawi Book Fair & Literary Festival. He also belongs to the Copyright Society of Malawi and the Malawi PEN organization. A teacher by training and freelance journalist, Mr. Sharra has taught in primary schools and contributed articles to various publications and the radio, including the BBC. He is interested in familiarizing himself with US literary history while he is at the University of Iowa. His participation is supported by the US Information Agency.
(fiction writer, Russia; born in Moscow, 1963) is assistant professor of Russian literature at Moscow State University, and is considered one of the most interesting contemporary writers in Russia. Still in his early thirties, has has already received considerable recognition in Russia's literary circles; he was a winner of the Anti-Booker Prize in 1995 and received awards from the Moscow magazine Oktyabr (October) and from the German club Lege Artis e V. He has written three books and has published short stories prolifically in Moscow as well as in Germany and Japan. His works are also forthcoming in Great Britain and the Netherlands. He is a graduate of the department of Russian language and literature at Moscow State University, and is now one of the leading specialists in the department. He has served as visiting professor at the University of Rostock (Germany) and the University of Ghent. In addition to English and his native Russian, he speaks Spanish and French. He is at the IWP on a grant from the US Information Agency.
(born in Athens, 1966) is considered the new star of Greek letters. His novel, The Wise Kid (Athens, 1993; sixteenth edition in September 1996), is being made into a film in English, a step toward worldwide recognition. He is a member of the Education Council of the Center for Diplomatic Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is also an attorney-at-law; he graduated from the law school of the University of Athens in 1990. He is a regular contributor to the magazine Elle, where his interviews with famous authors, political figures, and scientists appear. Mr. Homenides is the IWP's first author from Greece in over a dozen years, and his participation reestablishes a strong Greek presence exemplified by such writers as Costas Tachtsis, Thanassis Valtinos, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, and Odysseus Elytis. The US Information Agency is providing the support for his participation.
(born in Michoacan de Ocampo, 1940) is senior professor of American and English literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and as a highly placed mentor to several generations of students, he has been instrumental in developing a good number of his country's current scholars, authors, translators, and researchers of American and British literature. He studied at Trinity College in Cambridge. He is the author of many scholarly texts, including The English Novel: Four Eighteenth Century Authors (1978); "Shakespeare: The Mirror and the Target" (1979); "Irony and Humor in Medieval Literature" (1983); currently in press is The Hero in the American Novel: from Herman Melville to Russell Banks. Prof. Quintero is presently working on a nonfiction work addressing life in big cities. His first novel Semper Fidelis (1994) is described as a Mexican novel about Vietnam, and tells of a Mexican student on scholarship at a US university who, to thank the United States for its generosity, enlists in the US Army during the Vietnam war. His participation in the IWP will be his first extensive visit to this country, and is supported by the US Information Agency.
(born in Stockport, 1959) has been described by England's Daily Telegraph as "one of the most brilliant novelists of his generation." His parents, both professional basketball players, emigrated from Hungary to England in 1956; Tibor Fischer grew up in Bromley, South London, and studied Latin and French at Cambridge. He subsequently worked for television companies and newspapers in England, and in Budapest from 1988 to 1990. His first novel, Under the Frog, was rejected by 50 British and 12 American publishers before it came out in 1992; it won the Betty Trask Award the same year and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1993. Granta magazine listed him as one of the twenty best young British novelists of 1993; his second novel, The Thought Gang, published to wide acclaim in 1994, is being made into a movie. His work moves rapidly to ever expanding recognition: his most recent novel, The Collector Collector, is a "literary lions" selection in the July 1997 Book-of-the-Month Club listings. This novel narrated by a 6000-year-old self-proclaimed "bowl with soul" is enjoying wide distribution in this country through Henry Holt. The US Information Agency is providing Mr. Fischer's support at the IWP.
(fiction writer; born in Ilha de Mozambique, 1935) is one of her country's best known writers; her works have been translated into English and appeared in African and Mozambican anthologies. She is also known for her participation in Mozambique's liberation movement: armed with a bachelor's degree in social work from Portugal, she was poised to lend a hand to a struggling post-colonial government at a time when there were few professionals in the country. She represented her country in numerous international meetings on cultural issues, including the UNESCO General Assembly in Paris. As the current president of the Mozambican Writers' Association (AEMO) General Assembly, she works actively toward promoting female authors and civic education. Her writing career spans the colonial, socialist and democratic cultural contexts of her country. Her literary publications include two novels, Neighbours (1995) and the forthcoming The Eyes of the Green Cobra, and a short story collection, Nobody Killed Shuhura (1989; subsequently translated into Italian and English). Her short story "Slum Dwelling" won the first prize in the literary contest of the centennial of Maputo in 1987. She is at the IWP through the US Information Agency.
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