Arnost LUSTIG
1996
playwright, screenwriter
is a commissioned playwright with the Melbourne Theatre Company. Her one-act play Family Running for Mr. Whippy was nominated for the 1995 Best New Australian Play, and produced by the theatre companies of Melbourne and Sydney, and adapted for Australian national radio. The Australia Council gave her two grants to script the film Great Darkness Light. The film Sparks, for which she wrote the screenplay, won awards for best screenplay and best film at the 1990 Australian Film Institute Awards; the movie subsequently won prizes at the Chicago International Film Festival and the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival in France. She studied scriptwriting at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, and holds the BA from Murdoch University. She is currently writing a children's book commissioned by Fremantle Arts Press. She is at the IWP through the USIA.
1996
critic, poet, screenwriter
founded the KTO Theatre in Krakow in 1977, and during Poland's martial law served as editor-in-chief of a unique, orally-presented literary journal, NaGlos ("Speaking Out"); the magazine now continues in printed form. Dr. Maj is assistant professor of contemporary literature at the Jagiellonian University. He published eight poetry collections, among them Taka wolnosc ("That Sort of Freedom"; MAW, Warsaw, 1980) and Swiatlo ("The Light"; Krakow, 1994). His poetry has been translated into twelve languages and appeared in The Seneca Review and Salmagundi among others. His US translators include Czeslaw Milosz and Stanislaw Baranczak. He received the Koscielscy Foundation Literary Award (Geneva, 1984), the "Solidarnosc" Cultural Award in 1983 and 1984, and the PEN Club poetry award of 1995. The Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation is providing Dr. Maj's support.
1999
fiction writer, poet, screenwriter
(poet, short story writer, scriptwriter, Nigeria; born 1974, Ibadan) started writing at an early age. Now, at 25, her poetry and fiction have received four National Awards from the Association of Nigerian Authors. Her first poetry collection, So All the Time I Was Sitting on an Egg (Ovalonion House, 1998) was followed by a second, unpublished collection, Matters of Grave Persistence, which received the first prize in the competition of the Ono chapter of ANA. She is currently editor of the Ovalonion Publishing House and marketing manager for the literary journal, Glendora Review. A former student of IWP alumnus Niyi Osundare, Lola holds the MA in literature from the University of Ibadan and the BA (Honours) in English from Ogun State University. Her poetry, newspaper articles and scripts for television sitcoms and the radio soap opera "B.T.Street" are popular; her poems and short fiction have appeared in Glendora Review, the Association of Nigerian Authors Review, and in various Nigerian newspapers and magazines. She plans to establish a non-governmental organization and creative writing school, Rising World, that will stimulate and encourage other young writers. The US Information Agency is providing the grant for her participation in the IWP.
2000
fiction writer, filmmaker, screenwriter
(born 1961, Buenos Aires) is considered, at 39, is considered one of the most gifted young writers on the literary scene. His film, Silvia Prieto , which he wrote and directed, was entered in the Sundance Festival in 1999, as well as in festivals in Berlin, San Francisco and Munich. It has just been released commercially in Argentina to critical acclaim. His other feature length films, Rapado (Shaved Head; 1992), was entered in film festivals in Rotterdam, Havana, and Locarno. His fiction has been similarly well received, particularly Velcro y yo (Velcro and I; 1996) and Rapado (1992). His other publications include A Book ABout Kuitca, Thirty-Four Short Stories (1993). The IWP has hoped for his participation for several years, and he is taking part in the program this year through a grant from the U.S. Department of State.
2000
playwright, screenwriter
(born 1949, Israel) teaches political playwriting to graduate students in the Theatre Department at Tel Aviv University, and dramatic writing at the Kibbutz College Drama School. He has been a freelance playwright and screenwriter for the major theaters and television channels in Israel since 1984. He was the 1994 recipient of his nation's most important literary award, the Prime Minister of Israel Award for Writers. His plays include "Kastner, a political/historical drama," which received the Best Play of the Year award in 1985 and was produced in Germany; and "Exile in Jerusalem" which was produced by the Royal National Theatre Studio in London, and featured Julie Harris in the title role at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts in 1994. His most recent works include "The Murder of Isaac" (1999), on the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and "The Institution," an ongoing TV series dealing with the life of therapists and their patients. Mr. Lerner's studies in mathematics and physics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem were interrupted by service in the Israel Defense Forces; following the resumption of his mathematics studies, he studied theatre and attended various theatre workshops in London and San Francisco. He is attending the IWP through support from the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation.
2001
fiction writer, screenwriter
(born 1954, Moscow) is the author of Lovets (2000), which was short-listed for the prestigious Russian "Anti-Booker" Prize. He received the Einsenstein Prize in German in 1994, and his short stories have appeared in his country's most distinguished journals. He is attending the IWP on a grant from the US Department of State.
2004 Resident
fiction writer, filmmaker, playwright, screenwriter
(fiction writer, screenwriter, playwright, filmmaker; b. 1955, China) is a prize-winning, widely anthologized writer, with many TV and film credits. She has produced and directed in both media, venturing next to independent filmmaking. She has published over a dozen novellas, four collections of stories, two novels, and is currently at work on Another China , a documentary film project about expatriate Chinese writers in New York, and a new novel. Tang's numerous publications include Tell Laola I Love Her , a novella selected for inclusion in the Best Chinese Novellas of 2001 , W ife from America (1994) , a novel that was adapted for the stage, serialized in Liberation Daily , and won first prize for Stories Serialized in Newspapers and Magazines, Asexual Partners (2001), a novella that was also serialized, No Love in Shanghai (2002), and most recently, Senseless Journey (2003), a novella published in the Chinese journal Harvest. Ms. Tang is participating courtesy of the Asian Cultural Council.
2005 Resident
fiction writer, playwright, screenwriter
is a civil engineer who lives in Aleppo. His novels include Cancer, The North Winds, A Case of Passion, and Noise and Silence. Of his many television dramas the most widely acclaimed, Silk Market, set in Aleppo during the political turmoil of the 1950s, was shown throughout the Middle East, in Germany and in Australia. His latest series, Al Khait Al Abiadh (‘The First Gleam of Dawn’), provides a frank depiction of the country’s government-controlled media. Many Arab-speaking stations aired the series in 2004, generating praise for its boldness and controversy. He is at work on a 30-episode series about the early life of the Lebanese-born artist and poet Kahlil Gibran. He participates courtesy of the US Department of State.
2005 Resident
playwright, screenwriter
is one of the most prominent directors of the so-called Post New Korean New Wave. He began his career as a stage actor and director, with Hot Sea (1994) and Movie Movie (1995). His move to screenwriting brought quick success: in 1997 his screenplays Wonderful Seasons and The Quiet Family both won first prizes at festivals. Kim's directorial debut was The Quiet Family, which won top honors at the Portugal Fantasporto Film Festival, and was an official selection at the Berlin International Film Festival. His next movie, The Foul King, which he wrote and directed, rose to become the number-one movie in Korea for six months—sealing his reputation as one of his country's leading directors.
2006 Resident
fiction writer, filmmaker, playwright, screenwriter
has published two novels, written five plays, and worked on several films as writer and director. His most recent project, My Friend, My Enemy (2004), is a documentary about friendships between Palestinian and Israeli women. In 2004, he co-founded the Open Workshop for Culture and the Arts in Palestine, an organization that encourages cultural exchange between Palestine and the global community through art. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.
2006 Resident
fiction writer, screenwriter
was raised in the Xinghua province of Jiangsu, China. After early years as a journalist in Nanjing, he went on to publish more than 20 novels and short story collections, several of which have been awarded prizes, including two Lu Xun prizes (1995-6; 2002-2005). In 2004, he was named Most Favorite Chinese Writer in France. Among his film work is the screenplay for Shanghai Triad (1995), directed by Zhang Yimou. His novels have been translated and published in France and Germany. He participates courtesy of The Ramon and Victoria Lim Fund, the Freeman Fund, Dr. Shiliang Sun, and Hualing Engle.
2006 Resident
filmmaker, screenwriter
rose to fame with Suzhou River (2000) which he wrote and directed, and which won major awards at film festivals in Rotterdam, Paris and Tokyo, as well as the FIPRESCI prize in Venice, and was voted by Time Magazine (Asia) as one of the best movies of 2000. In its wake Lou Ye was banned from making films in China for two years. Since then he has written and directed Purple Butterfly (2003) and Summer Palace (2006), both screened at the Cannes Film Festival to broad critical acclaim. The working title of his current science fiction project is Restorer. He participates courtesy of the Asian Cultural Council.
2007 Resident
fiction writer, screenwriter
has written extensively for film and television and authored three novels (titled, in translation 'The Guard of Deception,' 1993; The Gypsy Notebooks, 2000; and In Praise of Hatred, 2006), published in multiple editions in the Arab world. His honors include a 2007 award from the Ismaiiliyah International Festival for Documentaries and a 2005 Award for Best Script for Bab al Maqam, from the Valencia Film Festival. Currently, he is working on his fourth novel, A Parallel Life. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
2007 Resident
critic, fiction writer, playwright, screenwriter
is a widely-read bilingual author in contemporary Indian literature, working in both English and Marathi. His novels and screenplays have been well received in India, England, Germany, and the U.S., leading to a Rockefeller Fellowship, the 2000 Sahitya Akademi Award for Best Novel (Cuckold, 1997), and a City of Munich Fellowship. Nagarkar’s latest novel in English, God’s Little Soldier (2006), has been translated into German, with French, Italian and Spanish translations forthcoming. He participates courtesy of the U.R. Ananthamurthy Foundation.
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