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IWP Reading at Prairie Lights Books

Aug 27, 2023

04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

Prairie Lights Books, 2nd Floor

15 South Dubuque Street, Iowa City, IA 52240

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An image featuring portraits of three writers and the following text: "International Writing Program (IWP) & University of Iowa MFA programs present: Prairie Lights Books Reading Series. Sunday 8/27, 4-5 PM. Yasuhiro Yotsumoto, Japan. Senka Maric, Bosnia

Join us for the International Writing Program at Prairie Lights Sunday Reading Series to hear IWP 2023 Fall Residency writers Yasuhiro Yotsumoto and Senka Maric, as well as Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate and IWP Youth Programs Coordinator Romeo Oriogun, read from their work.

Yasuhiro Yotsumoto (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 linguistically experimental 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. 

Senka Maric (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 Selimovic 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. Maric 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. 

Romeo Oriogun is a Nigerian poet, essayist, and the author of Sacrament of Bodies (2020), Nomad (2021) and The Gathering of Bastards (2023), as well as three chapbooks. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has won the Nigeria Prize for Literature, the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Prize, the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the Lambda Prize for Gay Poetry. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, The Nation, Harvard Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, The Common, and elsewhere, and translated into several languages. As of 2023, he coordinates IWP’s youth programming. 

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa–sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact in advance at