This fall, 32 writers from across the globe traveled to Iowa for an 11-week-long residency at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.
Since 1967, the program has hosted 1,600 writers from over 160 countries. It’s the longest-lasting partnership between literary residence and the U.S. Department of State.
Christopher Merrill is in his 25th year as director of the program.
“The writers come, I tell them on this day of orientation, they are here to write, and that should be their primary focus,” Merrill said. “But we also hope that by the end of their stay they will have gained many new impressions of this country and of the literary traditions of their fellow writers, and they will have made some lifelong friendships.”
Merrill said the public can access free events during the writers' stay to hear their work, including Tuesday night readings in the Shambaugh House on the UI campus, Sunday afternoon readings at Prairie Lights Bookstore and panel discussions every Friday at noon at the Iowa City Public Library. Event details are available at the IWP website.
River to River Host Ben Kieffer is interviewing several of these writers during their stay in Iowa City. This page will be updated as these interviews air. Meet the writers below.
Péter Závada
Péter Závada is a poet, playwright, translator and a teacher from Hungary. His writing combines scientific texts with poetry. Závada said in contrast to many younger generation poets, he does not prefer personal poems.
“I really like impersonal things. They calm me down. And for some reason, when I go to university and I used to study there, and now I teach their scientific texts, they arouse me. They give me ideas. They influence and inspire me. So this is how some of my texts, some of my poems, are made up.”
Závada was in crowded New York City in the spring and visited Los Angeles in the summer, a city that he said was isolating because people were sitting in their cars all the time. He said Iowa is something in between.
“Once you become a writer, you know of Iowa — even in Europe, and even in Eastern Europe.”
He hopes to write a play during his residency.
Pervin Saket
Pervin Saket, an Indian poet, novelist and editor said she began writing in part as a way to befriend other writers. Her work focuses on characters without large voices and celebrates them.
"I find that I tend to lean towards work that fills in the gaps. Even in conversations, when there's a party, for instance, and there are a lot of people talking, I am listening for the quiet people," she said. "I'm looking at the people who don't really seem to take center stage, and much of my writing tends to do that too."
In addition to her literary writing, Saket is also an author of ten biographies for children about impressive Indian women in science and sports. She said there are female role models in India, but many people aren't aware of them, and her book seeks to address that.
Saket said it's been enriching to meet writers from so many different countries during her stay in Iowa.
"I'm going to be working on my novel while I'm here, and I think that this perspective and distance is going to enrich what I'm doing in the book as well," she said.
Saket shared a poem titled "Janus" during her interview. The title refers to a mythical god with two faces, one that looks at the past and one that looks at the future. Her poem plays with structure, using verse to express oppression and empowerment.
"This poem was published in an anthology called Veils, Halos & Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women. So I thought about writing a poem that speaks to both the idea of oppression and empowerment at the same time. But how does one do that? So this particular poem uses the same verse to express oppression and empowerment, but the verse is read in reverse order."
Olena Huseinova and Lyuba Yakimchuk
Olena Huseinova and Lyuba Yakimchuk are both poets from Ukraine. Their writing expresses the trauma of Russia’s war, but also how life persists amid the violence.
Yakimchuk lost her family home to Russian soldiers’ occupation of the Donbas region of Ukraine 2015. She said for nine years soldiers have been sleeping in the bed of her parents.
She writes about how language has been changed by war. For example, electricity was something she said Ukrainians took for granted before Russia’s invasion. Then, it became dangerous to use electricity at night because the lights could be used by Russians to bomb them.
“It's like we have this shift in language, a meaning of this word [was] changed a little bit. It became dangerous. It was taken for granted and became dangerous, " Yakimchuk said. “But when Russia started to destroy it, to destroy our electricity infrastructure, electricity became something valuable, because we have lack of electricity.”
Huseinova grew up in central Ukraine and went to school one year behind Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She was working at a radio station as an arts and culture journalist when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. She was tasked with alerting listeners of air raids and telling them where to get water.
“It was so fast changing that I understand that I have to be someone else in this moment,” Huseinova said.
Amid the violence, destruction and death, the writers say they have used humor to cope. Yakimchuk said irony is a way to make their enemy miserable.
“For instance, right now in Ukraine, we have electricity outages. It's no electricity for sometimes 10 hours ... And we can joke like this, ‘It's better to spend a winter without electricity than the whole life with Russians,’” Yakimchuk said.
“The most horrible lesson any person could get [is] to be used to war,” said Huseinova. “But we should, because it is a part of our resilience. We should know how to live with everything.”
Huseinova and Yakimchuk’s mutual friend and fellow writer, Victoria Amelina, was killed after a Russian missile struck a restaurant where she was dining. In Iowa, the poets say they can have a sense of peace while working on their writing that tells the story of Ukraine.
“The most important thing is love,” said Huseinova. “... It is actually not just love between lovers, or between parents and kids, or between your friends. It is some almost religious or existential love when you [understand] that everyone who is near you is yours.”
These interviews were produced by Caitlin Troutman, Dani Gehr and Sam McIntosh.
