Struggle of Individual Imagination
Christopher Merrill introduces the panel discussion. Festus Iyayi talks about the repression of writers by the state and cites Sweden as a good example of the state letting authors writing what they want. He believes writers do not exist separately from the states they live within. The relationships that exist between writers and their home countries also determines the type of writer that person becomes within society forcing them to write in a manner acceptable to regime. Samira Al-Mana orginally from Iraq speaks of the differences between the state and the writer. She has lived in exile in London for a number of years and shares what it was like to return to Iraq. Hanan Awwad of Palestine describes her writing style and how it relates to Palestine’s political environment. Saadi Samawe talks about life as a writer in Iraq. Yigong Zhang describes the strictures writers in China face. Questions are taken from the audience at the end.
In: International Writing Program Archive | Fiction | Poetry
Authors: Festus Iyayi , Samira Al-Mana, Hanan Ahmad Awwad, Saadi Simawe, Yigong Zhang, Savyon Liebrecht
Date Recorded: October 31, 1990
Program: ICPL Panel Discussions
Format: discussion
Note: audio quality is inconsistent