Like a linguistic tourniquet, the omnipresent cinch of English is making it increasingly difficult for us, immersed in it, to hear what others are saying about us abroad when they speak among themselves, in words of their own.

The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa is currently designing a course which would give English-speaking students a glimpse of how “America” is being spoken about, alluded to, figured, in contemporary world fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. We would like to assemble a and continuously expand a curriculum of recent pieces or literary fragments that would be translated by translators outside the UI, or be forwarded to us in the original to be translated by students in the MFA program in translation here at UI, then used as course readings and hopefully published annually as a special issue of the IWP’s on-line journal 91st Meridian.

For suggestions, inquiries and submissions, please contact natasa-durovicova@uiowa.edu