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India, March 20 -- When Bengali poet and novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay was writing his first novel, Atmaprakash (Self Revelation, 1964), he used a narrative technique he had learned from American Beat writer Jack Kerouac. "I don't have to go looking around for plots," Gangopadhyay recalls Kerouac telling him, in his autobiography Ardhek Jibon (Half a Life, 2000). "Before starting a novel, I try to recollect some of my experiences. What was I doing that month of that year? When I remember, I start writing from there. The writing progresses on its own."
Much of Kerouac's own writing was autobiographical. A few of Gangopadhyay's early novels also recounted his adventures with his poet and writer friends. This unexpected influence of avant-garde American literature on its Indian counterpart was made possible through the University of Iowa's (UoI's) reputed writing programme, where Gangopadhyay was a resident in 1963-64.
The university's graduate writing programme, Iowa Writer's Workshop, is one of the oldest and most famous creative writing courses in the US. As a counterpart to it, poet Paul Engle and novelist and editor Hualing Nieh Engle established, in 1967, the Iowa Writing Program (IWP), a non-academic writers' residency for international artists and writers, at UoI. Since then, it has "welcomed 1,600 writers from over 160 countries", claims its website. Among its notable alumni are Nobel Laureates Orhan Pamuk (Turkey), Mo Yan (China) and Hang Kan (South Korea).
The IWP has also been an important destination for many Indian writers. Gangopadhyay returned to Iowa in 1982 as a resident at the IWP. Several other Bengali writers - Shankha Ghosh, Joy Goswami, Srijato, among others - have also been to the residency. Writers from other Indian languages, such as Devanur Mahadeva (Kannada) and Ashokamitran (Tamil) have been residents at the IWP. Among Indian writers writing in English, Ranjit Hoskote, Abhay K, Sridala Swami, Rochelle Potkar, Meena Kandasamy, Akhil Katyal, Chandramohan S, Adil Jussawalla and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra have had stints at the residency.
This is, of course, not an exhaustive list. On a personal note, I had self-nominated myself for the residency in 2022 - but unsuccessfully. I hoped to apply again, after a few years. However, now it seems this opportunity will cease to be available to Indian writers.
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