Translation Events at AWP 2017

Translation Events at AWP 2017

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference (AWP 2017) schedule is live! To make it even easier, we’ve put together the list of translation-related events that you can look forward to attending at the conference.

The conference will take place from February 8 to 11, 2017, and is being held in Washington, DC, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and the Marriott Marquis Washington. We hope to see you there – visit ALTA at booth 212!

 

Thursday, February 9, 2017

9:00 am to 10:15 am

Marquis Salon 6, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two R110. Translation as/and Advocacy. (Antonio Aiello, Canaan Morse, Alta Price, Eric M.B. Becker, Erica Mena) Literary translation provides a unique and valuable window into the histories and narratives of other cultures. At PEN we believe that the act of literary translation can be a form of international advocacy, allowing readers to explore the literary and narrative trends of some of the world’s least translated territories. Translators and editors discuss the importance translation plays in cultural exchange and grapple with the question of what is lost when so many stories go untranslated.

10:30 am to 11:45 am

Room 208AB, Washington Convention Center, Level Two R167. Translation as a Political Act. (Jennifer Kronovet, Aditi Machado, Pierre Joris, James Shea) Translators often consider how their work influences the cultural landscape into which they translate, but equally important is how the translator creates political ripple effects, welcome or not, in the author’s home country. Panelists translating from Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish discuss their experiences navigating cultural politics, censorship, and nationalism, as they explore the political consequences and ethical burdens of serving as a medium between cultures.

12:00 pm to 1:15 pm

AWP Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Halls D & E, Washington Convention Center, Level Two R188. VIDA Voices & Views: Exclusive Interview with Joan Naviyuk Kane, Ada Limón, & Alicia Ostriker. (Sheila McMullin, Melissa Studdard, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Ada Limón, Alica Ostriker) Calling attention to a plurality of voices by interviewing writers and dedicated members of the literary community about their work, vision, concerns, and topics at the forefront of literary activism, this panel contributes to a better understanding of craft, the literary landscape, and issues facing artists. Panelists seek to foster nuanced conversation about gender parity, race, and other crucial issues impacting writers today as well as speak to how their work expands this conversation.

1:30 pm to 2:45 pm

Room 102A, Washington Convention Center, Level One R217. Solo en Español: An All-Spanish Reading and Craft Discussion. (Jose Faus, German Perilla, Norma Cantu, Maria Diaz) This reading and craft discussion celebrates work of the Spanish-language, multi-genre anthology Corazon y Una Lengua Peregrina. It features work by Latino Writers Collective members living in the Midwest who have roots across the Americas and Spain. Esta lectura y discusión celebra el trabajo de la antología en Español y múltiples géneros, Corazon y Una Lengua Peregrina. Nosotros presenta la letra de miembros del Colectivo de Escritores Latinos con raíces a través de las Américas y Espana.
Room 203AB, Washington Convention Center, Level Two R225. The Immigrant as Translator, Sponsored by ALTA. (Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas, Alireza Taheri Araghi, Aron Aji) Many different paradigms of translation are based on the idea that the translator is someone who ventures out in the world and brings back foreign texts. How is our thinking about translation changed if the translator is an immigrant (or emigrant) who comes from a foreign culture and literary tradition? Are the issues facing an immigrant translator different from a native English-speaker?

3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Supreme Court, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four R240. Cat Painters: Contemporary Serbian Poetry in Translation. (Zvonko Karanović Karanović, Dubravka Djurić, Snežana Žabić, Nenad Jovanović, Biljana Obradović) The panelists, among seventy contemporary Serbian poets, appear in the anthology Cat Painters, which was co-edited by Biljana D. Obradović, who is one of its major translators, and Dubravka Djurić, and it is prefaced by Charles Bernstein. These accomplished Serbian and Serbian-American poets read from the anthology and also from their recently published books translated into English. These West-oriented poets look to the future and are not preoccupied with the past.
Monument, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four R241. Writing on the Frontlines of the Tex-Mex Frontera. (David Bowles, Amalia Ortiz, Erika Marie Garcia-Johnson, Edward Vidaurre, Daniel Garcia Ordaz ) The Texas-Mexico border is often depicted as an exotic, seedy tourist trap or as a tragic immigration battleground. Amid the confluence of cultures and languages in the Rio Grande Valley, however, there exists a welcoming hope and rich history that these multilingual authors embrace as home. This panel explores questions of what it means to be a border writer. What responsibility does a writer have to places of trauma? How does one write about it in a way that honors it but does not exploit it?
Room 204C, Washington Convention Center, Level Two R261. From the Fishouse: A Bilingual Reading of Poets from Around the World. (Matthew O’Donnell, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Piotr Gwiazda, Katherine Young, Ani Gjika) Since 2004, From the Fishouse has provided the public greater access to the poems and voices of emerging US poets by using online audio archives, simulcast readings, and other media to bring poetry into the home and classroom. Our revised website now features emerging international poets and translators. This bilingual reading will showcase poets writing in Russian, Polish, Spanish, Albanian, and Filipino, as well as a translator discussion about process and the joys and challenges of this important work.

4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Liberty Salon I, J, & K, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four R276. Translation: Bringing Pakistani Writer Intizar Husain to the West. (Asif Farrukhi, Nishat Zaidi, Frank Stewart, Alok Bhalla) Though acclaimed Pakistani writer Intizar Husain wrote primarily in Urdu, he was mourned by readers all over the world when he passed away in February 2016. An English translation of his novel Basti was published as a New York Review of Books Classics Original, and he was shortlisted in 2013 for the prestigious Man Booker International Prize, given for lifetime achievement. Three of Husain’s translators discuss his significance and their efforts to bring his timeless writing to the West.
Salon F, Washington Convention Center, Level One R287. Iranian Diaspora Writers as Cultural Ambassadors: Engaging Iran After the Nuclear Agreement . (Persis Karim, Sholeh Wolpe, Anita Amirrezvani, Jasmin Darznik, Soraya Shalforoosh) This dynamic panel features writers/translators who engage Iran and Iranian culture through poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translation. By sharing their work, these Iranian American writers offer a literary window at a time when we need cultural ambassadors to shape a powerful dialogue about US-Iran relations. Panelists read from their work, discuss the challenges and opportunities for publishing, translating, and participating in a cultural shift as diaspora writers in both the US and Iran.
Room 208AB, Washington Convention Center, Level Two R296. Thirteen Ways of Looking at Translation: Polish Poetry and Beyond. (Ewa Chrusciel, Robin Davidson, Piotr Florczyk, Karen Kovacik, Iza Wojciechowska) Our panel will focus on translating, publishing, and marketing contemporary Polish poetry. It will address such topics as collaborating with an author over several books, the delicate negotiations of self- or co-translation, strategies for contextualizing translated work, ways to support other translators, and tips for compiling an anthology. Panelists will discuss their processes for bringing poems into English, read examples of their translations, and welcome questions from the audience.

6:00 pm to 7:15 pm

Room 101, Washington Convention Center, Level One R298. Latino Caucus. (Ruben Quesada, Fred Arroyo, Suzi Garcia, Alexandra Regalado, Dan Vera) The visibility of Latinos and Latin Americans is growing in the literary community. However, a discussion surrounding systematic, institutional, and aesthetic challenges is needed. Latinos need a space to come together, to address inequalities in access, to meet with writers of varied Latino and Latin American identities, to discuss the obstacles to publishing (e.g., cultural expectations, stereotypes, and marginalization), and to discuss event planning to increase participation at AWP.
Friday, February 10, 2017

9:00 am to 10:15 am

Marquis Salon 7 & 8, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two F111. Dreaming the World Through Translation: International Perspectives on Creative Process. (Helene Cardona, Martha Collins, Ming Di, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Ani Gjika) Does the language we speak shape the way we think, our reality, our world, our dreams? Do more words mean more thoughts? Can we think about things we don’t have words for? Working with Albanian, Chinese, French, Korean, Spanish, and Vietnamese, this panel’s poets, translators, and scholars discuss their roles as intermediaries, technicians, magicians, and alchemists working between languages to create inspired texts spanning cultural differences, geographic distances, and time.
Monument, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four F115. Translation and Power, Sponsored by ALTA. (John Keene, Lucas de Lima, Erica Mena, Eunsong Kim) Translators discuss the power dynamics between translator and author, original and derivative, dominant language and nondominant language, exploring questions of appropriation, exploitation, representation, and ethics. Thinking about how systems of exploitation and oppression are reproduced by cultural creation along lines of linguistic power, these practicing translators consider the ethics at stake in acts of literary translation.
Liberty Salon L, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four F117. When Writers Move In and Out of Their Countries and Genres. (Dina Elenbogan, Harriet Levin Millan, Fabienne Josaphat, Sui Li) Seeking to expand their borders, four published poets, who have published debut works of fiction or nonfiction this year, discuss their attempts to cross the cultural divide between landscapes and genres, The four US panelists who, among them, have written books set in Israel, South Sudan, Bulgaria, and Haiti, discuss what they have learned in their journey to overcome ascribed attitudes and identities.
Salon F, Washington Convention Center, Level One F125. Hands, a Flurry of Words: A Reading by Deaf Writers. (Raymond Luczak, Tonya Stremlau, Christopher Jon Heuer, Pamela Wright Moers, Kristen Ringman) How many Deaf writers do you know? One, two? No? How about five? These five Deaf published writers will welcome you with their poems and stories on communicating and treated differently. Having this many Deaf writers together for a single reading and perform their work in American Sign Language (ASL) is an extraordinarily rare event anywhere. Come treat your eyes and ears for a bit of literary history!
Room 209ABC, Washington Convention Center, Level Two F136. Translation: Out of Context, Into the Wild. (Amalia Gladhart, Karen Emmerich, Brandon Rigby, Tze-Yin Teo, Kelly Lenox) Translators translate context, Edith Grossman has written. Yet translation also rests on the belief that a work can be meaningfully understood in the absence of its original context, since translating literature typically involves shifts across geography, culture, and even time. These panelists, all translators from different language families and genres, discuss how they define context, how they determine which contexts to carry forward, and whether some may be let go.
10:30 am to 11:45 am
Monument, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four F145. I’ve Never Heard of That Country: Sri Lankan American Writers on Shaping an Emerging Literary Identity. (SJ Sindu, Nayomi Munaweera, Vyshali Manivannan, Sunil Yapa) Sri Lankan American fiction as a category is relatively new in the literary landscape. On this panel, SLA writers who have grown up in the US talk about their relationship with Sri Lanka, how they view their writing in relation to SLA literature, what they see as the contours of emerging SLA fiction (specifically in relation to violence and war, which SLA writers have inherited in blood-memory and familial trauma), and where they hope to see SLA fiction grow.
Liberty Salon I, J, & K, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four F146. The World as Refuge. (Adrianne Kalfopoulou, Natalia Sylvester, J. Michael Martinez, Helen Thorpe, Andrea Rexilius) This event details the various ways in which writing creates refuge and considers how to adopt spaces and cartographies of imagination over the familiar or native. Panelists discuss what it means to write outside of one’s native language or native land; how narratives set outside of the US are reshaping how we define American literature; what it’s like for monolingual English speakers to work with familial languages; and how undocumented students born in the US navigate being American.

12:00 pm to 1:15 pm

Virginia Barber Middleton Stage, Sponsored by USC, Exhibit Halls D & E, Convention Center, Level Two F190. A World of Our Own: Women’s Voices from Three Continents in Cultural Exchange. (Tess Barry, Jan Beatty, Eleanor Hooker, Zeina Hashem Beck, Clodagh Beresford Dunne) Five women poets from Lebanon, Ireland, and the US discuss the cross-cultural intersections in the work of women writing and publishing in the global age. At different stages of recognition and publication, with some publishing outside of their countries, these poets also read excerpts from their work as they examine issues of aesthetics, gender, and ethnicity.
Room 203AB, Washington Convention Center, Level Two F193. A Celebration of the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation, Sponsored by ALTA. (Dennis Maloney, James Kates, Carolyn Tipton) Cliff Becker (1964–2005) was the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Director. Believing “translation is the medium through which American readers gain greater access to the world,” he expanded NEA support for translation. His widow, Leila, and daughter, Sahara, established the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation, now administered through ALTA. The series editors will discuss how this unique publication prize fulfills Becker’s vision and the translators will read from their books.

1:30 pm to 2:45 pm

Room 204C, Washington Convention Center, Level Two F229. Translating Contemporary African Poetry. (Todd Fredson, John Keene, Janis A. Mayes, Kazim Ali, Hodna Nuernberg) Ivorian poet Tanella Boni identifies fringe literature as work marginalized by dominant literary economies because it is written in a language with limited market potential, or because the work represents a social world that seems unimaginable for nonlocal readers. Five translators discuss their experiences accounting for the plurality of social worlds in African poetry—the convergence of languages, the nuances of ethnic and cultural difference—and read from their translations.

3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Room 204AB, Washington Convention Center, Level Two F264. Arthur A. Levine Books: The First 20 Years. (Neil Connelly, Arthur A. Levine, Cheryl Klein, Susan Shreve, Eric Gansworth) In 1997, Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic, released its first book: When She Was Good by Norma Fox Mazer. The imprint has since published a distinguished array of books for children and young adults, including established writers and debuts, translations, picture books, and nonfiction—not to mention the Harry Potter series. To mark the imprint’s 20th anniversary, the founding publisher, an editor, and three authors will celebrate the talent that has led to its success.
Room 206, Washington Convention Center, Level Two F266. A Reading by the University of Maryland’s MFA Program Faculty. (Elizabeth Arnold, Maud Casey, Emily Mitchell, Michael Collier, Joshua Weiner) A reading by five faculty members from the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland who have won major literary awards, including Guggenheim Fellowships, NEA Fellowships, and the Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship. The reading will be followed by a Q & A.

4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Marquis Salon 7 & 8, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two F275. Expanding the Literary Community: Writing Workshops for Underserved Populations. (Bonnie Rose Marcus, Naomi Ayala, Kamilah Aisha Moon, Regie Cabico, Emily Rubin) Writers with extensive experience teaching workshops that reach diverse and underserved populations, including seniors, teens, cancer survivors, LGBT, and multilingual individuals discuss why they’ve chosen to do this work. Panelists consider the rewards and challenges of teaching these workshops and their role in expanding the literary community.
Salon F, Washington Convention Center, Level One F290. Writers Organizing the Future. (Kimiko Hahn, Zakia Henderson-Brown, Elizabeth Bradfield, Christopher Shannon) As the planet spins into deeper social and environmental crises, how can writers participate in finding solutions? Whether we care or not, our voices are out in the world. Panelists explore writers’ unique tools and social connections and see what has worked in the past and what could be in the mix? Issues include the environment, labor, and grassroots organizations with or without a cultural component. Is action a writer’s responsibility? No, no more than any other citizen.
Room 204C, Washington Convention Center, Level Two F295. The Elusive Lyric: Approaches to Translation. (Sarah Stickney, Curtis Bauer, Mira Rosenthal, Russell Valentino, Sawako Nakayasu) Lyric poetry demands a keen ear and great skill to translate. Lyrics often proceed by leaps and innuendos; the sense of the line lies in its music, and its power in an ability to bend time. How can a translation capture the immediacy, pulse, and energy of this ancient form? Five translators will discuss how to transport a lyric from one language into another. We will explore possibilities and solutions that range from conservative to radical in a celebration of translation’s juiciest challenge.
Saturday, February 11, 2017

9:00 am to 10:15 am

Marquis Salon 9 & 10, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two S112. Opening the Doors to Discovery: The Generative Writing Workshop. (Rachel Basch, Baron Wormser, Rebecca McClanahan, Dustin Beall Smith, Kim Dana Kupperman) “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader,” said Robert Frost. How do creative writing teachers help students open the doors to discovery? This panel will explore generative workshops for adult writers. Panelists have taught many workshops in all genres and developed a sense, practical and intuitive, about the value of using prompts to generate fresh and surprising writing. The notion is reminiscent of Buddhist koans: be in the present and respond to what occurs in the moment.
Marquis Salon 12 & 13, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two S113. Translating Parts Unknown: Transforming American Landscapes by Recovering Neglected Poets. (Linwood Rumney, John Balaban, Wayne Miller, Rebecca Lindenberg, A’Dora Phillips) Translation offers unique opportunities to recover and discover neglected poets who push against the boundaries of convention, enriching American traditions. Writers who translate previously under-appreciated Albanian, Vietnamese, Russian, Spanish, and French poets discuss the challenges and joys associated with such work. To encourage more writers to translate as an act of creative discovery, they also explore professional opportunities and offer insights into craft and criticism.
Liberty Salon N, O, & P, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four S119. Writing Against Borders: Literature and the (Un)Making of Nationhood. (Dean Rader, LeAnne Howe, Heather Hill, Margaret Noodin) What is the role and responsibility of a writer to a nation? In what way can literary production be an integral part of nationhood? How can writing resist or redefine nationalities? This interdisciplinary panel looks at the many ways fiction, poetry, nonfiction, drama, and film participate in, interrogate, and reimagine nationalism and nationhood. Each of these writers has turned to literature to explore how national identity not only comes to be but comes to be internalized and reinforced.
Room 206, Washington Convention Center, Level Two S132. Watching the Stars: New Latino/a Speculative Fiction . (Matthew David Goodwin, Kathleen Alcalá, Pablo Brescia, Alejandra Sanchez, Steve Castro) In this panel, four Latino/a authors included in Latino/a Rising: An Anthology of Latino/a Speculative Fiction, to be published in 2017, give readings of their fiction and poetry. There is a growing movement of readers who are interested in the many incredible Latino/a writers who are creating science fiction and fantasy. Latino/a Rising demonstrates how these Latino/a writers are transforming the genres.

10:30 am to 11:45 am

Room 102B, Washington Convention Center, Level One S154. Translating Iraq. (Alana Levinson-LaBrosse, Neil Shea, Heather Raffo, Andrew Slater) Since before the Iraq War began in 2003, Americans have worked to understand Iraq: a country incomprehensible to many of its own citizens. The major and minute divisions and the competing desires can overwhelm even the most conscientious observer. The participating American writers of this panel have lived and worked in Iraq. Bringing home Iraq’s realities, whether through poetry, fiction, documentaries, Instagram, plays, or operas, is an act of delicate artistic and cultural translation.
AWP Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Halls D & E, Washington Convention Center, Level Two S156. The América Invertida Project: A Poet-to-Poet Model for Opening New Literatures to US Readers, Sponsored by ALTA. (Jesse Lee Kercheval, Ron Salutsky, Javier Etchevarren, Virginia Lucas, Catherine Jagoe) This project paired poet/translators with Uruguayan poets to produce América Invertida: An Anthology of Emerging Uruguayan Poets; Earth, Water and Sky: A Bilingual Anthology of Environmental Poetry; hundreds of poems in magazines; and eight individual collections. This panel not only introduces Uruguayan poetry to a wider audience, but also showcases an approach that can be duplicated with other languages and countries. The panel includes the editor who originated the project, translators, and Uruguayan poets.

12:00 pm to 1:15 pm

Marquis Salon 12 & 13, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two S175. Whats Found in Translation. (Jennifer Grotz, Susan Bernofsky, Geoffrey Brock, Bill Johnston) While many lament what they fear is “lost in translation,” this panel considers what is actually discovered in the act of literary translation. Four veteran translators and faculty of the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference reflect on what literary translation has the potential to introduce into a given culture and language while meditating on their own practices as writers and translators.
AWP Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Halls D & E, Washington Convention Center, Level Two S188. Persian Poetry as American Influence: A Multigenre Discussion . (Roger Sedarat, Don Share, Tom Sleigh, Elizabeth T Gray) Over a half century before Ezra Pound turned to Chinese and Japanese poetry to help establish a poetics of western modernism, Ralph Waldo Emerson found his way to another, less recognized region of Asia. While poetry from Iran continues to inform American writing, its significance remains somewhat neglected. Five acclaimed American and Iranian American authors offer new insights about the influence of Persian poetry upon their fiction, criticism, poetry, journalism, and literary translation.

1:30 pm to 2:45 pm

Liberty Salon N, O, & P, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four S213. Narratives of Immigration and Displacement . (Ranjan Adiga, M Thomas Gammarino , David N Odhiambo , Snezana Zabic) Displacement, exile, and immigration are compelling motifs in literature, but are not always glorious to experience. Our panel features poets, essayists, and fiction writers from Kenya, Croatia, Hong Kong, Nepal, and the US East Coast who have migrated out of choice or exile to find new homes in/within the United States. Panelists explore the tropes of “us” and “them,” histories and boundaries, assimilations and identities, and languages and voices that create our narratives and aesthetic choices.
Room 203AB, Washington Convention Center, Level Two S226. Pacific Rim Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics. (Tony Barnstone, Mindy Zhang, Mark Bender, Jonathan Skinner) Is ecopoetry a genre, a topic, a map? With roots in Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, and folk beliefs, Pacific Rim ecopoetry often promotes a spiritual connection to nature and a distrust of the marketplace. Much contemporary Pacific Rim ecopoetry blossoms from these roots, but with an extra urgency due to the radioactive legacy of WWII and nuclear energy spills; deadly air, water and ground pollution; and the related cultural and social changes experienced by local cultures and ethnic minority groups.
Room 204C, Washington Convention Center, Level Two S228. Contemporary Translation and Performance in the Americas. (Kristin Dykstra, T. Urayoán Noel, Achy Obejas, Rosa Alcalá, Jacqueline Loss) Contemporary writers in every nation explore eclectic forms. How can performance impact strategies and contexts for translation in our hemisphere? Along with altering words, translation complicates factors central to performance: the identity of the performer, communities/sites associated with meaning, ephemerality. Examples reference translation as script, use of digital technologies, musical and theatrical influences, translation in/as archive, the manifesto as a performative form, and more.

3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Supreme Court, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four S240. Tipping the Scales: Addressing Gender Imbalance in Literature in Translation. (Karen Phillips, Hillary Gulley, Sholeh Wolpe, Marguerite Feitlowitz, Alta Price) The VIDA Count statistics, among other initiatives, have spotlighted the underrepresentation of women writers as authors, critics, and review subjects in the mainstream media. How does gender parity play out in the world of literary translation? Translators specializing in languages of Asia, Latin America, South America, and Europe read from their work and discuss strategies for finding, translating, and publishing international women writers.
Room 203AB, Washington Convention Center, Level Two S259B. Poets as Translators: Versionists, Revisionists, or Vehicles? Sponsored by ALTA. (Barbara Goldberg, David Keplinger, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Mark Irwin, Alana Marie Levinson LaBrosse) Do poets who translate produce a new poem that imitates the source material, or do they bring across the idiom and word in the full definition of the word “translating”? Are poets vehicles for the work they translate, or are they called on to recreate? If the latter, what is permissible within the context of literary translation? The following languages are used as examples in this panel: Danish, French, Hebrew, Kurdish, and Romanian.

4:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Marquis Salon 6, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two S270A. Us & Them: A Writer/Translator Reading. (Todd Portnowitz, Peter Cole, Jennifer Grotz, Geoffrey Brock, Susan Bernofsky) This Brooklyn-based reading series comes to AWP. Four authors celebrated for their translations and original writing read from both sides of their work.
Room 102A, Washington Convention Center, Level One S281. Immigration: Cultural Binding, Creative Chaos, and the Survival of International Writers. (Kalpna Singh-Chitnis, Octavio Quintanilla, Deema Shehabi, Alexander Cigale, Hedy Habra) How does immigration affect a writer’s creative pursuit in another country? There are many success stories of immigrant writers, but there is yet another side of their stories to tell their challenges after migrating to another country, either by choice or in an event that forces a migration. Immigration not only results in binding of cultures, but also leads to a creative chaos in want of proper opportunities, recognition, and an environment to be creative and productive. A much-needed debate!