Show support for Iowa's historic International Writing Program by checking out these titles by current and former IWP residents, all featured in ICPL's World Languages Collection!
Xing yi si shi
Zhang, Yixuan, 1973- author.
CHINESE Zhang
“Zhang Chu 张楚 (novelist; PRC), member of the 2024 IWP, is the author of six short story collections, most recently 七根孔雀羽毛 (Seven Peacock Feathers) (2023), 过香河 (Passing Xianghe) (2021), and 夜是怎样黑下来的 (How the Night Fall) (2019). He published his first novel, 云落 (Yun Luo) in June of 2024. Among the awards he has won are the Lu Xun Literature Award, Yu Dafu Fiction Award, Sun Li Literature Award, Lin Jinlan Short Story Award, Gao Xiaosheng Literature Award, and the Chinese Young Writers Award. Three of his books have been adapted for the screen. His participation is made possible by a gift from the Ramon and Victoria Lim Fund.” (Quoted from IWP website)
- Charlotte
Huang hun li de nan hai
Yu, Hua, 1960- author.
CHINESE Yu
"Huang hun li de nan hai" (黄昏裡的男孩), published in 2012, is a collection of twelve stories set in modern China, with themes ranging from despair to joy and back again.
Born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China in 1960, Yu Hua (余华) is broadly considered one of China’s greatest living authors. Since leaving his profession as a dentist and beginning to write in 1984, Yu has published five novels, six collections of short stories, and three collections of essays. When asked about the theme of his writing in an interview by the IWP during his 2003 residency, Yu described his writing as discussing the ability of the Chinese people to overcome any difficulty presented to them.
- Charlotte
Hong gao liang jia zu
Mo, Yan, 1955-
CHINESE Mo
Born in 1955 in Gaomi, Shandong, China, Mo Yan (莫言) attended the International Writing Program’s 2004 Residency. Mo has been actively writing since 1976, and has received multiple honors for his contributions to literature, including the International Nonina Prize in 2005, the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature in 2009, and the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature. Influences on his work include William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez.
- Charlotte
Chang hen ge
Wang, Anyi, 1954-
CHINESE Wang
Wang Anyi (王安忆) was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China in 1954. The current vice-chair of the China Writers’ Association since 2006, she is the author of a broad range of novels, short stories, novellas, and essays. Wang took on writing as a profession beginning in 1980, but marks her 1983 trip to Iowa City for the International Writing Program as a defining moment in her career.
- Charlotte
Hijas de América Latina : una antología global
featuring, among others, Luisa Valenzuela
SPANISH Hijas
"Spanning time, styles, and traditions, a dazzling collection of essential works from 140 Latine writers, scholars, and activists from across the world--from warrior poet Audre Lorde to novelist Edwidge Danticat and performer and author Elizabeth Acevedo and artist/poet Cecilia Vicuña--gathered in one magnificent volume."--
Luisa Valenzuela was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1938, the child of a physician and a writer. Her childhood home was frequently occupied by such influential writers as Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Ernesto Sabato. After years of traveling and writing, she attended the International Writing Program on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1969. Many of her works focus on critical examinations of dictatorships and patriarchal power structures.
- Charlotte
Landsmoder
Salamanca, Elena, 1982- author.
SPANISH /Salamanca
"Landsmoder, by the Salvadoran poet, historian, and performance artist Elena Salamanca, is a searing, and sometimes grotesque, exploration of the intersections between nationalism, dogma, patriarchy, and violence. Originally read aloud from the oldest standing monument in San Salvador's centro histórico, the performance poems in Landsmoder retool the laudatory pomp of patriotic ceremony to protest the weaponization of national myth as a mask for erasure, cruelty, and neglect at the hands of the state. This unflinching collection, whose title comes from a Norwegian word that Salamanca translates as "madre de la patria" -- or "mother of the nation/homeland/fatherland"-- is a work of feminist grief, rage, and irony populated with churning wombs, bloodied flags, and rattleboned she-wolves. Appearing now in a bilingual edition nearly a decade after it was first performed, Landsmoder remains an urgent subversion, loud as ever, both on and off the page"--Publisher's website.
“Elena Salamanca (poet, historian, fiction writer, art curator; El Salvador), a 2024 IWP participant, is the author of several multidisciplinary books of poetry, fiction, and scholarly historical work. She has published three bilingual editions of her poetry translated into English: "Tal vez monstruos" (Monsters Maybe) (2022), "Landsmoder" (2022), and "La familia o el olvido" (Family or Oblivion) (2017). She is the creator, author, researcher, and co-coordinator of the collection "SIEMPREVIVAS: Extraordinary Women in the History of El Salvador" (2022). She is a three-time recipient of the National Poetry Prize in El Salvador, and her books have been published in the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Though she currently lives in Mexico, she continues to work as an academic, artist, and activist in El Salvador. Her participation is made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.” (Quoted from IWP website)
- Charlotte
Apricots of Donbas : poems
I︠A︡kymchuk, Li︠u︡bov, author.
891.7914 /Yakimchuk
"Apricots of Donbas is a bilingual collection by award-winning contemporary Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuk. Born and raised in a small coal-mining town in Ukraine's industrial east, Yakimchuk lost her family home in 2014 when the region was occupied by Russian-backed militants and her parents and sister were forced to flee as refugees. Reflecting her complex emotional experiences, Yakimchuk's poetry is versatile, ranging from sumptuous verses about the urgency of erotic desire in a war-torn city to imitations of childlike babbling about the tools and toys of military combat. Playfulness in the face of catastrophe is a distinctive feature of Yakimchuk's voice, evoking the legacy of the Ukrainian Futurists of the 1920s. The poems' artfulness go hand in hand with their authenticity, offering intimate glimpses into the story of a woman affected by a life-altering situation beyond her control"--Amazon.
“Lyuba Yakimchuk (poet, playwright, screenwriter, performance artist; Ukraine), one of the 2024 IWP participants, is the author of the poetry books Абрикоси Донбасу (Apricots of Donbas) (2015) and Як мода (Like Fashion) (2009), as well as the plays "Wall" and "Schrödinger's Cat." She also wrote the screenplays for both the film "Slovo House: Unfinished Novel" (2021) and the documentary "Slovo House" (2017). Yakimchuk was a songwriter and spoken word artist on the album "Ukrainian Songs of Love and Hate" (2022) and coauthor with Mary Branley of the libretto for the musical "Freedom Letters." Her writing has been translated into more than twenty languages, and she read her poetry as part of John Legend’s performance during the 2022 Grammys. Her work has been covered by The New York Times, BBC, CBC, and CNN. Her participation is made possible by an anonymous gift to the IWP.” (Quoted from IWP website)
- Charlotte
Diamonds of the night
adapted from Arnošt Lustig's short story
DVD MOVIE WORLD CZECH Diamonds
With this simultaneously harrowing and lyrical debut feature, Jan Nemec established himself as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. Adapted from a novel by Arnošt Lustig, closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, a hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry.
Born in Prague in 1926, Arnošt Lustig was a Czech Jewish author widely renowned for his works, many of which prominently featured the Holocaust. After escaping from the Dachau concentration camp in 1945 and aiding in the following uprising against German occupation in May of that year, Lustig studied journalism at Charles University. He traveled to Iowa City in 1970 for the International Writing Program before taking turns living in Prague and Washington, D.C., where he taught at American University. Lustig passed away in Prague in 2011 at age 84. Diamonds of the Night is a film adaptation of the short story “Darkness Casts No Shadow” in his anthology of the same name.
- Charlotte
Cold war
Glowacki, Janusz, screenwriter
DVD MOVIE WORLD POLISH Cold
A sweeping, delirious romance begins in the Polish countryside in 1949, where Wiktor, a musician on a state-sponsored mission to collect folk songs, discovers a captivating young singer named Zula. Over the next fifteen years, their turbulent relationship will play out in stolen moments between two worlds: the jazz clubs of decadent, bohemian Paris, to which he defects, and the corrupt, repressive Communist Bloc, where she remains, universes bridged by their passion for music and for each other.
Born in Poznań, Poland in 1938, Janusz Glowacki was the award-winning writer of numerous essays, plays, and scripts. Born into a family of creatives, Glowacki was immersed in the fine arts from a young age, eventually attending the University of Warsaw and earning a Master of Arts in 1961. He attended the International Writing Program twice, once in 1970 and again in 1986, after which he taught creative writing and worked as a visiting playwright at multiple American universities. Glowacki passed away in Egypt in 2017, at the age of 78. Cold War is one of many films for which he is credited as screenwriter.
- Charlotte
“Yassin Adnan (poet, fiction writer, editor, television presenter; Morocco), a member of the 2024 IWP, is the author of six poetry collections, three short story collections, one novel, and one book about travel. The novel, "Hot Maroc," was published in English by Syracuse University Press in 2021. Adnan serves as president of the Marrakech English Book Festival and as a member of the board of trustees of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The founder of two literary magazines, he has also hosted two cultural television programs, one radio show, and one podcast. He is the editor of various titles, including the anthology "Marrakech Noir" (2018). His participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.” (Quoted from IWP website)
- Charlotte