With Wong Yi Eva (Hong Kong), Senka Marić (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Yasuhiro Yotsumoto (Japan), Martha Cecilia Ruiz (Nicaragua), and Soonest Nathaniel (Nigeria)

Presented in collaboration with the International Writing Program  

Part of Hancher's Infinite Dream festival

 Every year, the University of Iowa welcomes a cohort of esteemed writers from around the world for the International Writing Program’s fall residency. A selection of writers from this year’s group will share poetry, prose, and other creative expressions in conversation with the ideas and questions of the Infinite Dream festival. The writers will consider their own myths, fears, and hopes about the American story as well as navigate their roles as voices from the vast international community of artists and thinkers.  

 FREE and OPEN to the public  

General admission seating begins at 4:30 p.m.  

WONG Yi Eva 黃怡 (fiction writer, essayist, librettist, editor; Hong Kong) is the author of short stories collections 擠迫之城的戀愛方法 (Ways To Love In A Crowded City), 林葉的四 季 (The Four Seasons of Lam Yip), 補丁之家 (Patched Up), and 據報有人寫小說 (News Stories), as well as the libretti for Cantonese-language chamber opera (Women Like Us) 兩個女 子, and multimedia concert 幸福家庭與狗 (The Happy Family). She won the 2018 Hong Kong Arts Development Award for Young Artist (Literary Arts) and was in 2020 among the “20 most anticipated young Sinophone novelists” in the Taiwanese magazine Unitas. She is working on stories exploring Hong Kong’s historical monuments, and on texts for performance with music and other art forms. Her participation was made possible by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global.

Senka MARIĆ (poet, novelist, essayist, editor; Bosnia-Herzegovina) is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Do smrti naredne (Until the next death; 2016) and the novels Kintsugi tijela (2018) and Gravitacije (2021), translated into English as Body Kintsugi and Gravities, and to several other languages. The former received the 2018 Meša Selimović Award for best novel in BiH, Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro, the English PEN Translates Award 2022, and was shortlisted for the 2023 EBRD Literature Prize; Gravitacije won the 2022 Štefica Cvek Award for feminist writing. Marić often participates in European literary events, teaches writing workshops, and is the editor-in-chief of the online literary magazine Strane.ba. Her participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Yasuhiro YOTSUMOTO 四元康祐（poet, translator, essayist, editor; Japan) is the author of more than 15 poetry collections, including Starboard of My Wife (translated into English by Takako Lento) and several volumes of poetry translations and anthologies, including Dante Meeting Li Po. His poetry has garnered him an Ayukawa Nobuo and a Hagiwara Sakutaro award, among others. After 30+ years in the U.S. and Germany, Yasuhiro recently moved his home base to Tokyo, where he teaches poetry, organizes poetry events, and contributes poetry criticism. His participation is courtesy the Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Martha Cecilia RUIZ (nonfiction, fiction, editor, arts promotor; Nicaragua) has for the past three decades worked as a reporter, scriptwriter, and a host of radio and television programs. The organization she founded, “Proyecto365MCR,” promotes Nicaraguan women’s creative writing. The author of Familia de cuchillos (Family of knives; 2016), she has also contributed fiction and non-fiction to a dozen national and regional anthologies. Her participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Soonest NATHANIEL (poet, spoken-word artist; Nigeria) is the author of the mixed-genre volume Burying the Ghosts of Dead Narratives (2022) and the poetry collection Teaching Father How to Impregnate Women (2018). The winner of the 2017 RL Poetry Award and many Nigerian poetry and spoken-word competitions, he was named a Langston Hughes Fellow at the Palm Beach Festival and served as the Poet Laureate for the Korea Nigeria Poetry Festival; his poems appear in Nigerian and in U.S. and British magazines. He participates thanks to a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

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