Enah JOHNSCOTT (filmmaker, TV director, screenplay writer; Cameroon) has written and directed The Fisherman's Diary, and directed the feature-length Half Heaven. His work has garnered him a first place in the screenplay category at the 2020 Africa Movie Academy Awards, and prizes at film festivals in Africa, UK, and Russia. His current screenwriting project centers on a boy with autism. He participates thanks to a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2023 Resident
fiction writer
Nektaria ANASTASIADOU Νεκταρία Αναστασιάδου (fiction writer; Turkey/Greece) is the author of the English-language novel A Recipe for Daphne, shortlisted for the 2022 Runciman Award and long-listed for the 2022 Dublin Literary Award, and Στα Πόδια της Αιώνιας Άνοιξης [Beneath the Feet of Eternal Spring] (2023), written in Istanbul Greek; her work has appeared in The Markaz Review, and elsewhere. She participates thanks to a gift from the estate of William B. Quarton.
2023 Resident
fiction writer, non-fiction writer, poet, visual artist
Yashika GRAHAM (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual artist; Jamaica), the winner of the 2019 Mervyn Morris Prize for Poetry, has also received a Centrum Writer’s Residency and read at literary festivals including Dodge Poetry (USA), Bristol (UK), the World Festival of Poetry (Venezuela) and Port Townsend (USA). Her poetry, prose, and literary criticism have been published internationally; her debut collection Some of Us Can Go Back Home is forthcoming from Blouse & Skirt Books. She participates courtesy a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2023 Resident
editor, fiction writer, non-fiction writer, playwright, poet, translator
Tzveta SOFRONIEVA Цвета Софрониева (poet, fiction writer, playwright, essayist; Germany/Bulgaria), a physicist and historian of science by training, is the author of over 20 books, including Multiverse (2020), a collection of new and selected poems written originally in German, Bulgarian and English and A Hand Full of Water (2012), translated from the German, the recipient of a 2009 PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant and the 2012 Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation. Her poetry has been translated into 19 languages; her theater work has been supported by Bulgaria’s National Cultural Fund. She participates courtesy of the Max Kade Foundation.
2023 Resident
fiction writer, poet
WONG Eva Yi 黃怡 [fiction writer, essayist, librettist, editor; Hong Kong] is the author of short stories collections 擠迫之城的戀愛方法 [Ways To Love In A Crowded City], 林葉的四季 [The Four Seasons of Lam Yip], 補丁之家 [Patched Up], and 據報有人寫小說 [News Stories], as well as the libretti for Cantonese-language chamber opera [Women Like Us] 兩個女子, and multimedia concert 幸福家庭與狗 [The Happy Family]. She won the 2018 Hong Kong Arts Development Award for Young Artist (Literary Arts) and was in 2020 among the “20 most anticipated young Sinophone novelists” in the Taiwanese magazine Unitas. She is working on stories exploring Hong Kong’s historical monuments, and on texts for performance with music and other art forms. Her participation was made possible by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global.
2023 Resident
fiction writer, poet
Mary ROKONADRAVU (fiction, nonfiction, prose poetry; Fiji) creates stories, poetry, and literary nonfiction inspired by art, history, and science. Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific region) in 2017, she won it in 2015 and in 2022. Her work has been published in Granta, adda, and Synkretic, and anthologized by the University of London Press and Penguin Random House; she is now working on a novel. Her participation is supported by the U.S. State Department through its Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
2023 Resident
fiction writer, translator
Azhar NOONARI اظهر نوناري (fiction writer, translator; Pakistan) made his debut in 2016 with the novel [Black Bird in a White Cage] in 2016; in 2019, his story “اجنبي” [The Stranger] won the Naseem Kharl Short Story Prize. His many translations between English and Sindhi, of both fiction and non-fiction, have been published in Sindh's leading literary publications; in 2023, a novel will be published that retells Homer's Iliad with elements from Indian and Arab history and mythology. He teaches at the Islamia College of Arts and Commerce. His participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2023 Resident
children's author, editor, fiction writer, poet
Wesley MACHESO (fiction; poetry; editor; Malawi) won the Peer Gynt Literary Award for his children’s book Akuzike and the Gods (2017). Twice shortlisted for the Miles Morland Writing Scholarship and longlisted for the 2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize, he is the author of the collection A Masquerade of Spirits (2020); his poems are included in the 2020 anthology Wreaths for a Wayfarer and widely in journals on-line. He is an associate professor at the University of Malawi. His participation was made possible by the U.S. Department of State, courtesy the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
2023 Resident
editor, fiction writer
SUO ER 索耳 (fiction; editor; PRC) is the author of the novel 伐木之夜 [The Night of the Felling] and the story collection 非亲非故 [Noncorrelation]. His works have appeared in China’s top literary magazines and received many awards, the 43rd Hong Kong Youth Literary Award and a 2021 nomination as Most Promising Newcomer of the Year by the Southern Literature Festival among them. He has also engaged in publishing, media, and exhibition work. His writing concerns itself with the dispersion of cultures, and with lives of individuals in a “Southern framework.” He participates thanks to a grant from the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou.
2023 Resident
children's author, editor, fiction writer, translator
Noelle Q. DE JESUS (fiction, editor, translator; Singapore) is the author of the collections Cursed and Other Stories (2019) and Blood Collected Stories (2015), which won a 2016 Next Gen Indie Book Award and was translated into French, as well as of other fiction. She has edited anthologies of flash- and micro-fiction, translated from the Tagalog, and participated in literary festivals in the Philippines, Singapore, and the U.S. Her work has appeared in Witness, Puerto del Sol, Fiction Attic Press and The Art and Craft of Asian Stories, among other places. Her participation is funded by the National Arts Council Singapore.
2023 Resident
editor, fiction writer
SHI Yifeng 石一枫 (novelist, editor; People's Republic of China) has authored the novels [Fruit under the Red Flag], [In Love with Beijing], and [An Unofficial History of the Heart] as well as the story collections [Chen Jinfang Is Gone] and [Itching for a Fight]. Among his many awards are the Hunan New Talent Award, the Hundred Flowers Award, the People’s Literature New Author Award, and the Yu Dafu Novella Award. He is also an editor at Dangdai magazine. His participation was made possible by the Paul and Hualing Engle Foundation.
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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