@ Shambaugh House

If you had stopped by the lobby of the Iowa House Hotel this morning shortly before 7am, you would have found two dozen writers exchanging last minute hugs, goodbyes, and promises to keep in touch with Iowa City friends and IWP staffers, including Housing Coordinator Mary Nazareth and her husband, Program Advisor Peter Nazareth. Last night, Peter and Mary could be found tearing up the dance floor at the Clinton Street Social Club where IWP writer Rodrigo Lopes (Brazil) performed after the IWP 2012 Farewell Reception, held in honor of the writers at the historic Englert Theatre in downtown Iowa City yesterday evening.

The writers first had a chance to reflect on Iowa and on the residency experience at last Friday’s “Images of America” panel at the Iowa City Public Library. Pandora (Burma) called the residency “One of the best experiences of my life” and explained it had given her a chance to share the culture, landscape, and literature of her own country while learning about those of her fellow writers. Andrei Khadanovich (Belarus) addressed the shared hope that friendships and creative bonds forged during the residency will endure, saying “Together we will labor [to create] a big international web of IWP writers.”

In the final days, as the writers prepared to leave Iowa, their creative home for the past ten weeks, Federico Falco (Argentina) took it upon himself to photograph the spaces in which the writers lived and worked during the residency. His project, “26 Writers’ Rooms” offers a rare glimpse into how each of them configured and transformed these small and seemingly identical spaces into personal havens for writing.

At last night’s farewell reception, IWP director Chris Merrill offered closing remarks and presented each writer with a certificate along with a residency group photo as a way to help writers remember their time in Iowa.  Sitting in the audience at the Englert, watching party-goers mingle onstage before the ceremony, Yaghoub Yadali (Iran) reflected on his time in the residency as “the most productive period of my life” in terms of writing.

Outside Iowa House today, under an early morning drizzle, the writers climbed into waiting vans and headed for the airport, embarking on the end of residency travel period, which will take them first to Washington DC, where they will arrive in time to watch the election results roll in tonight, and later to New York City.

While in Washington, writers will join high school students for the D.C. Youth Poetry Slam at the Martin Luther King Library and participate in discussions and reading groups at DC area schools.

On Thursday, November 8, at 4pm, IWP writers will read at Politics & Prose Book Store, where they will be joined by Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs Ann Stock. A recording of the event in downloadable MP3 format will be made available by Politics & Prose here.

The writers will then travel to New York City, where on Sunday, November 11, new works commissioned from IWP writers on the theme of freedom will be brought to life in a performance by the Battery Dance Company.

While in New York, writers will also meet with literary agents and attend an issue release party for Granta 121: Best of Young Brazilian Novelists at McNally Jackson Books, before heading home to their respective countries next Tuesday.

Shambaugh House feels pretty quiet and empty without the writers around, but we look forward to hearing about their travels and to reading their new writing. And we hope you will let us hear from you too. Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check back here soon for more on IWP programming.

(Guest post from Shabnam Nadiya)

_{Such yearning in the heart, lips that care so much
Still he must go back, must go back
You call this going back? This isn't a pleasure jaunt
The road ends there
Whoever returns to a strange land? You can go. But return?
(Excerpted from The Artist Returns: by Sunil Gangopadhyay, translated by Arunava Sinha)}

            I discovered the Nil-Lohit books at a perfect age: I was about thirteen and had received his book Koishore as a birthday gift. Koishore translates as Adolescence, although the clinical English sorely lacks the poetry drenching the Bangla word. I remember the book still, smaller in size than the usual offerings from Ananda Publishers, barely a hundred pages, a laminated white cover with a window painted in vivid colors. I had no idea who the writer Nil-Lohit was, and the book languished on my desk for months before I picked it up one afternoon. I was utterly transformed as only a teenager in love with words and sorrow can be. Sadness like that: isn’t that what adolescence is for?

            The rest of the afternoon I spent by the calm, green waters of the lake near my house, sitting behind the wide trunk of a Flame Tree. Those Flame Trees had hidden much in those days, and they hid my tears that afternoon as well.

            I cannot say why I wept, why the story of a young girl so unlike me called up tears. But I do remember feeling that if only I could meet Nil-Lohit he would surely understand all that I could not put in words. It was a few more weeks before I realized from the back-cover bio that Nil-Lohit was Sunil Gangopadhyay’s pseudonym. Sunil, whose poetry collections and novels took up a half a shelf’s worth of space in my library. The love that had started years ago when I began reading his YA novels on the adventures of Kaka-Babu (uncle) and Shontu, that was cemented as I grew into an avid reader of poetry, transformed into a personal triumph with the discovery of the Nil-Lohit novels, stories narrated by a bohemian soul who flaneured his way through life.

It was as if this was a shared secret between the poet I would never meet and me; a space no one else could share. For after all, I was his one, true reader, I was the one who understood. All his poetry was mine too—I was the reader whose eyes he sought when he crafted those lines. Love like that: isn’t that what adolescence is for?

***

Sunil Gangopadhyay is a towering figure in Bangla literature, straddling both sides of the border in his life and words. Born in Faridpur, a district in present day Bangladesh, he grew up in Kolkata, India. In 1953, he founded a quarterly little magazine called Krittibas, which went on to shape Bangla poetry for decades to come. That same year a poem of his was anthologized in the seminal collection Love Poems of 25 Years. His first poetry collection was published in 1958. In 1966, he published his first novel Atmaprakash (Self-Revelation) which drew inspiration from Kerouac’s On the Road, but was wholly Bangali in spirit. 

Although poetry forever remained his primary love, he was also a prolific novelist, short story writer, memoirist, travel-writer, with over a hundred books published. Among the many awards he won was the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1985 for his seminal Shei Shomoy (Those Times), a two-volume novel set against the tumultuous and vast backdrop of the 19^th century Bengal Renaissance.

             He was invited twice to Iowa City’s International Writing Program ; once in the early years of the IWP, later in 1981. He wrote a book called Chobir Deshe, Kobitar Deshe (In the Land of Images, In the Land of Poetry) where he recounted his time in France and America.

***

            Chobir Deshe, Kobitar Deshe was and remains one of his more popular non-fiction books on our side of the border. Part memoir, part travelogue, the American chapters cover his time at the IWP and his friendship with Allen Ginsberg.

            I remember reading the book as a teenager, and being enamored of the idea of an institution like the IWP, of such nurturing of poets. Of being enamored of the vivid descriptions of Ginsberg. I remember hunting through the shelves of my literature professor father, looking for something by Ginsberg. If Sunil thought him a good poet, surely he must be worth seeking. And I remember becoming mind-blown upon reading September on Jessore Road and Howl, the latter in a boring looking Norton anthology.  Through such connections are our lives made large.

Sunil wrote of his discovery of the French Impressionists, the creative give and take with the Beat Poets and how all of this enriched his world. And thus he enriched ours. He was one of those people who opened up the world for us, who looked upon the world in its varied and diverse beauty and ugliness and sought to show us the same. “At times I think, there’s no use living anymore/At times I think/I’ll see the world to its end!/At times I rage at people/Yet love has to be given to someone.”

[An earlier version of this piece appeared in Bangla at bdnews.com]

----------------------

Shabnam Nadiya is a writer and translator, who grew up in Jahangirnagar, a small college campus in Bangladesh. She is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; and is currently working on a collection of linked stories called Pariah Dog and Other Stories.

After a weekend in Chicago, which included visits to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home, the Ernest Hemingway Museum, the Poetry Foundation, and the Field Museum of Natural History, as well as forays into Chinatown and Little India, the writers returned to Iowa City late Sunday evening. They now have only 15 days left in Iowa before finishing off the 2012 residency with readings and other events in Washington DC and New York City!

This week, we start out with IWP Cinemathèque, Tuesday night, with Alina Dadaeva (Uzbekistan) presenting Ivan Vassilievich Changes Profession. In this film, a man builds a time machine and, along with an apartment complex manager and a petty burglar, is accidently transported to 16th century Moscow, while Tsar Ivan the Terrible travels to the year 1973. E105 Adler Journalism Building, 7:30pm.

Friday’s panel, “At Language’s Edge,” will be held in the Gerber Lounge (English Philosophy Building, room 304) with Genevieve Asenjo (Philippines), Rodrigo Garcia Lopes (Brazil), and Taleb Al Refai (Kuwait).  Noon-1, pizza provided.

Then Friday at 5pm, join the IWP in welcoming Chinese writers Liu Yewei, Mao Juzhen, Sun Wei, and Zhang Yuntao to Iowa City. IWP Director Chris Merrill will officially welcome the writers and Zhang Yuntao and Mao Juzhen will give a reading.  The writers are part of the Life of Discovery creative exchange project,  a collaboration between IWP and the China Writers’ Association which puts writers from People's Republic of China in direct contact with American writers with the goal of fostering creative and academic exchange.The writers will be in Iowa from Oct. 26^th through Nov 2^nd. Join our Life of Discovery Facebook Event for more details about free public events during their visit.

On Sunday, Life of Discovery writers Sun Wei and Liu Yewei will read with poet Dora Malech, who traveled to China last June as part of Life of Discovery 2012. 4-5pm at Prairie Lights.

With only two weeks left in the 2012 residency, we hope you will join us in Iowa City this week or visit The Writing University to hear many of these events streamed live.

It was an exciting week at the IWP with the announcement Friday that Mo Yan (IWP ’04, China) had been awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature. Mo Yan is the second IWP alumnus to win the prize, after Orhan Pamuk in 2006. Check back here soon for a Shambaugh House Quarterly Roundup with other good news from IWP alumni. If you have news or information you’d like to be included, please send it along to ashley-r-davidson [at] uiowa.edu.

Last week, current IWP writers also got a chance to talk with WW Norton editors Robert Shapard and James Thomas during a special question and answer session. Shapard and Thomas, who edited the anthologies Sudden Fiction and Flash Fiction Forward, were in Iowa City in part to talk about their new anthology, Flash Fiction International, for which they are currently accepting submissions.

The schedule of upcoming events is slightly different than usual this week, so here’s the rundown of what you have to look forward to:

On Tuesday, at IWP Cinemathèque, Rodrigo Garcia Lopes (Brazil) presents the short film Satori Uso and Milagros Socorro (Venezuela) presents the feature film Hermano. E105 Adler Journalism Building. 7:30pm

On Wednesday, tune in at 3pm to hear Genevieve Asenjo (Philippines), Alisa Ganieva (Russia), Jeffrey Paparoa Holman (New Zealand), Christopher Mlalazi (Zimbabwe), Pandora (Burma), and Stephanie Ye (Singapore) on KRUI-FM’s The Lit Show, which streams live.

On Wednesday, we have the Shambaugh House reading with Jeffrey Paparoa Holman (New Zealand), and Dimitris Lyacos (Greece/Italy), 5-6pm. For those of you outside Iowa City, don’t worry, if you can’t join us, you can always stream it live.

On Thursday night, Luis Bravo (Uruguay) and Federico Falco (Argentina) participate in the latest installment of the Anthology reading series, in conjunction with the Works in Progress Festival, at PSZ, 120 N. Dubuque St., 9pm.

No Friday Iowa City Public Library or Sunday Prairie Lights reading this week, as the writers travel to Chicago to soak up the literary culture of the windy city.

For more IWP news (including photos, news, and other events), visit us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. 

What does your name mean? Where does it come from? If you could invent your own paradise, what would it look like? These were just some of the questions young writers were busy imagining answers to with the help of IWP writers Matias Correa (Chile), TJ Dema (Botswana), Nay Phone Latt (Burma), Gulala Nouri (Iraq), and Pandora (Burma) two Saturdays ago. The writers had made the trip across the state to the small northwestern Iowa town of Spirit Lake, near the border with Minnesota, to participate in a session of a new program called Face to Face. The International Writing Program and the Iowa Youth Writing Project have paired up to launch the program, which is bringing young people ages 12-18 together for free Saturday creative writing workshops at locations across Iowa throughout September and October.

“Face to Face is a simple but effective concept,” IWP writer Dema said. “Writers, most with teaching experience, get together with a room full of teenagers who love stories—as all children do—and who have the potential to become writers.” Face to Face is designed to reach out to a diverse population, including minority and rural youth around the state who might not normally have the opportunity to interact with people outside their home communities, bringing them into conversation with the international writers in residence at the IWP this fall.

“Our goal is to engage Iowa’s underserved youth with targeted creative writing workshop sessions in places where literature and writing can provide an inimitable bridge,” Iowa Youth Writing Project Coordinator Dora Malech said. Interacting with international writers is an important and powerful opportunity for young Iowans to broaden their horizons and gain a greater understanding of the world at a time when they are being empowered to find their own voices and encouraged to think, write, and share their own unique perspectives in a creative way.

The enthusiastic group of students at Spirit Lake spent four hours brainstorming, writing, and even illustrating stories with the help of IWP writers and Iowa Youth Writing Project volunteers, including students and recent graduates of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. At the end of the day’s session, the young Face to Face participants got a chance to practice reading their work aloud to an audience with a little help and guidance from performance poet Dema.

“The Spirit Lake/Okoboji workshop reminded me just how important it is to create a space where children can learn to give themselves permission to make up their own stories, poems, and drawings,” Dema reflected afterwards. “Our role really was to listen and then say to each child, 'here are a few ideas you might want to explore or this is how you might go about preparing to perform or read your work out loud.'”

The Face to Face program kicked off a few weeks ago with a workshop in Des Moines, the state capital. Genevieve L. Asenjo (Philippines), Alina Dadaeva (Uzbekistan), Pandora (Burma), and Barlen Pyamootoo (Mauritius) participated in that event, hosted by Monsoon United Asian Women of Iowa and Nisaa African Women's Project.  This Friday, IWP writers depart for Upper Iowa University for a Face to Face workshop that will bring students together from areas around Fayette, in the northeastern corner of the state. After another session in Ottumwa (southeast Iowa), young people who participated in Face to Face workshops all over the state will convene in Iowa City on October 27^th for a day of workshops and special events.

Face to Face is funded by a grant from the University of Iowa Provost Office and the Office of the Vice President for Research. The project is just one of the many ways IWP writers interact with the local community in Iowa City and beyond. For more on these interactions, visit our Facebook page, where you can also see photos of a recent day of readings, Q&A, and workshops with students from Des Moines Central Academy, when they visited IWP writers at Shambaugh House earlier this week.

On Sunday evening, writers, community members, and University of Iowa students gathered to see the works of nine current IWP residents performed by actors in the 12^th annual edition of Global Express, a program of staged readings of works by IWP writers.

The evening’s entertainment, held in a large black-box theatre in the UI Theatre Building, featured works by Taleb Al Refai (Kuwait), Luis Bravo (Uruguay), TJ Dema (Botswana),  Dimitris Lyacos (Greece/Italy), Christopher Mlalazi (Zimbabwe), Choi Myung Sook (South Korea), Gulala Nouri (Iraq),  Pandora (Burma), and Bilal Tanweer (Pakistan),  directed by Saffron Henke with dramaturgy by Maggie Conroy.

Waiting in the lobby to meet with the actors after the performance, poet Pandora joked that after seeing her poem, “The Scene of the City Siege by the Daft,” so dramatically delivered it would be difficult for her to read it to an audience again herself. “The bar is set so high now,” she said.

The nine staged works, which included excerpts of plays, poems, and fiction as well as multimedia work, varied from the tragic to the comic. In Christopher Mlalazi’s play, “Election Day,” an exuberant president harangues an underling in a bid to justify overriding the results of a national vote—an amusing exchange replete with bathroom humor even as it comments on serious issues of political process (with Zimbabwe not far from the audience’s thoughts). In Choi Myoung Sook’s “Two Daughters,” a married couple faces the surreal challenge of distinguishing their daughter from a duplicate who has appeared in their house. Given the range of tone and emotion, IWP writer and audience member Alisa Ganieva (Russia) was impressed by how cohesive the performance felt. “It seemed like one collective [whole],” she said.

All in all, Global Express was a terrific send-off as the writers head out on the mid-residency travel period, which will take groups of IWP writers to New Orleans and San Francisco this week. While away, the writers will take part in a number of cultural and literary events, including a reading at Room 220 in New Orleans at 7pm on Thursday, September 27th, which will feature IWP writers Khaled Alberry (Egypt) and Lucy Fricke (Germany); check out the event listing in the New York Times Review of Books!

The writers will be back in Iowa at the end of the week, with normal IWP events resuming on Sunday, September 30^th, with a reading by Lucy Fricke (Germany),  and Stephanie Ye (Singapore), joined by poet Grant Souders (Writers’ Workshop) at Prairie Lights, 4-5pm.

For more IWP news (including photos of weekly panels, readings, and a recent barn dance), visit us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

We are pleased to announce that beginning Tuesday, September 18^th, the University of Iowa will welcome New York Times bestselling novelist Hisham Matar, this year’s Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor, to Iowa City for four days of literary events.

While at the University of Iowa, Matar will visit classes, discuss translation and international literature with residents at the International Writing Program, and meet with undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty from the University’s various writing programs.

The public will also have a chance to get to know Matar through a series of free events. On Wednesday, September 19, at 11:00am, Matar will give a craft talk, "Never Believe What a Writer Says," to be followed by a Q&A session in the Frank Conroy Reading Room, Dey House, 507 N. Clinton.

Wednesday evening, at 7:00pm, he will read from his latest novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, at Prairie Lights Bookstore, 15 S. Dubuque. For those of you outside Iowa City, the reading will be streamed live by The Writing University.

When a loved one “disappears,” how does that absence shape the lives of those who are left? 

Matar was born in New York City to Libyan parents and raised in Tripoli and Cairo. His father, once a United Nations diplomat, was kidnapped in Cairo in 1990, managed to have two letters smuggled out of a Libyan prison in 1996, and was last seen alive in 2002.

Though certain elements of Anatomy of a Disappearance echo the author's life story, Matar emphasizes that it is a work of fiction and is not autobiographical. The novel was named one of the best books of the year by publications including The Chicago Tribune, The Daily Beast, The Independent, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Toronto Sun, and The Irish Times. The Washington Post hailed it as “A haunting novel, exquisitely written and psychologically rich,” and the New York Times called it “Studded with little jewels of perception.”

Matar’s debut novel, In the Country of Men, won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book award for Europe and South Asia, the 2007 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the Italian Premio Vallombrosa Gregor von Rezzori, and the inaugural Arab American Book Award, and has been translated into 22 languages. His stories, essays, and articles have been published in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New York Times and many other publications. Matar now lives in London and is an associate professor at Barnard College in New York City.

Other events open to the public include a brown bag lunch to discuss global human rights and social justice issues with the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights, as part of their Careers for Change lecture series, Wednesday, September 19^th at 1:00pm in the POROI conference room, Bowman House, 230 N. Clinton St.

On Friday, September 21^st at 2:00pm, Matar will participate in an interactive discussion and Q&A session hosted by The Writing University.  Questions can be sent ahead of time to: http://www.writinguniversity.org/page/submit-a-question

You will also be able to hear Matar interviewed on Iowa Public Radio’s program River to River and on University Radio KRUI’s The Lit Show. We are delighted to welcome Matar to Iowa City and we hope many of you will join us at the public events!

For daily updates on Hisham Matar’s visit, stop by our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.

The Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professorships Program was established in 1978-79 with the income from a bequest to the University by the late Ida Cordelia Beam of Vinton.

 After a full week of literary events in Iowa City, International Writing Program Residents piled into two vans and made the short drive to nearby Lake Macbride State Park. 2012 Resident Stephanie Ye of Singapore wasted no time in fastening her orange life-vest and climbing into an aluminum canoe for a scenic paddle around the lake with IWP Director Christopher Merrill. Other writers strolled along one of the park’s forested trails or sat on the hill overlooking the lake and chatted about writing, literature, and their first impressions of Iowa. Gulala Nouri of Iraq insisted she’d seen a snake in the water, though other writers on the paddleboat with her were skeptical. “There are no poisonous snakes in Iowa,” Merrill confidently assured her.  “Maybe it was a stick,” she admitted, laughing.

Later in the afternoon, a group assembled in the shade of a large tree near the dock and shared traditional songs from their home countries, first singing, then translating and explaining the lyrics. Milagros Socorro’s contribution, a snippet of the Venezuelan classic “Tonada de Luna Llena,” drew loud applause and calls for an encore. From the songs, talk turned to language and, of course, to writing. Mohib Zegham of Afghanistan shared how, when the Taliban came to his town, he could not express his thoughts and feelings without endangering himself and his family, so he turned instead to writing stories. As the writers hiked back up the hill toward the parking lot, Zegham stopped for a moment near the picnic tables to reflect on how important this residency is for him. “Iowa is paradise,” he declared. “I wish there would be a writer from Afghanistan at the IWP every year.”

On the way back to Iowa City, the writers made a stop at Wilson’s Apple Orchard, a local favorite, where Orchard owner Paul Rasch was waiting to give them a ride with the help of his loyal Bessie, an enormous bright green John Deere tractor. No sooner had the writers climbed aboard the long wooden wagon hooked behind the tractor, then they were off, down the grassy slope between rows of apple trees and pumpkin patches. The tractor hesitated when crossing the creek, but with a little positive reinforcement (Mr. Rasch led the writers in a chorus of Go Bessie Go!)  Bessie finally managed to pull her heavy literary load up the bank and into the rolling green hills. Back at the orchard store, the writers milled around sampling local products, then went out to take advantage of  the orchard’s shade while enjoying crisp, fresh apples, homemade apple turnovers, and apple cider donuts (“Perfect with tea,” Bilal Tanweer of Pakistan said). The day had cooled off, the perfect end to the first week.

Follow us on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more photos of the trip. Remember to check back here Monday for an update on upcoming events.

We're proud to announce that our 2012 Fall Residents have arrived! Coming from far and wide, these incoming writers have spent this early part of the week getting acclimated to their new environment, have gone thorugh the IWP's orientation program, and have celebrated their arrival with a wonderful reception held at IWP Director Christopher Merrill's Iowa City home.

The opening reception featured remarks by University of Iowa President Sally Mason as well as Congressman Dave Loebsack. Each writer also took a turn at the microphone to introduce him- or herself to the audience of approximately 250 community members, friends, colleagues, administrators, and lovers of literature who had gathered to welcome them to Iowa.

In the coming weeks, we'll be posting regular updates here at the Shambaugh House blog as well as to our Facebook Page and our Twitter feed.

This Friday, our Shambaugh House Reading series will get its start with readings by Mohibullah Zegham (fiction writer, translator; Afghanistan) and Genevieve L. Asenjo (fiction writer, poet, translator; Philippines). The reading will begin at 5 p.m. and light refreshments (coffee, tea, bagels) will be served.

After the Shambaugh House Reading, two of our Fall Residents will be participating in the Anthology Reading series, which brings together writers from across writing programs and communities here in Iowa City. TJ Dema (poet; Botswana) and Bilal Tanweer (fiction writer; Pakistan) will read alongside Fatimah Espiritu, Thessaly La Force, and Deborah Taffa. 936 E. Bloomington at 7:30PM.

Then, on Sunday, Taleb Al Refai (fiction writer; Kuwait), TJ Dema (poet; Botswana) and Ariel Lewiton (from Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program) will read at Prairie Lights at 4 p.m.

Check back every Monday for a look at that week's events (Mon. through the following Sun.), and be sure to visit us on Facebook and Twitter.