Friends are invited Tuesday, October 1st at 7:00pm to hear writers from the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. Participating authors include Patrícia Portela (Portugal), Roland Rugero (Burundi) and Sridala Swami (India).
This very special event will take place on the Rice Mill Lofts Rooftop, located at 522 Montegut Street, across the NOCCA parking lot. As the sun sets over the Mississippi River, guests will enjoy readings by the authors, followed by a reception.
These events are free and open to the public.
BIOS
Patrícia Portela (playwright, fiction writer; Portugal) has written and coordinated nearly twenty stage performances and live art works across Europe, the Middle East, China, and Brazil. Widely anthologized, she is the author of the novels Para Cima e Não Para Norte (2008) and Banquete (2012). A founder of the cultural association Prado, she teaches regularly at Forum Dança in Lisbon and, recently, in the Program for Visual Criticism and Film at the University of Antwerp. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Roland Rugero (fiction writer; Burundi) is the author of the novels Les oniriques (2007) and Baho (2012), and the editor of the literary pages of Iwacu Magazine. A contributor to Mémoire du Colloque Littéraire and the Dictionary of African Biographies (2011), Rugero is currently at work on Amaguru n’Amaboko, the second-ever feature film made in Burundi. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Sridala Swami (poet, fiction writer, children’s writer; India) is the author of the poetry collection A Reluctant Survivor (2007), and four children’s books. Her creative and critical work has appeared in Wasafiri, The South Asian Review, Her Kind (the VIDA blog), and The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, among others. Swami has been a film editor and teacher, curated a radio program “The Poetry Mohalla”, is working on an international collaborative writing project titled Chirality, and on the text/image project ‘V’ is for Valley. She is also preparing a collection of interviews with contemporary Indian poets. A second poetry volume, Escape Artist, is forthcoming. Her participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
The International Writing Program (IWP) is a unique conduit for the world’s literatures, connecting well-established writers from around the globe, bringing international literature into classrooms, introducing American writers to other cultures through reading tours, and serving as a clearinghouse for literary news and a wealth of archival and pedagogical materials. Since 1967, over fourteen hundred writers from more than 140 countries have been in residence at the University of Iowa.