[Reader-list] Almost Island: Dialogues 4

[Vivek Narayanan]

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Almost Island Dialogues, to be held 
at the India International Centre, New Delhi, from 18th to 21st March 
2010. The past three years of this conference have seen presentations 
and readings by major international figures like the Italian writer 
Claudio Magris and Chinese writer Bei Dao (both Nobel literature 
nominees) in mutual conversation with crucial and singular Indian 
writers like Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Irwin Allan Sealy or Vinod Kumar 
Shukla.

This year we plan to continue that unfolding with more (equally 
singular) writers, in our usual format that emphasises intimacy and 
rigour. The mornings and some afternoons are kept for intense, extended, 
freewheeling talks and discussions; the evenings, for readings and 
performances.

Please find below more details about the event, including schedule and 
writer biographies.

For a note about the discussions from Almost Island editor Sharmistha 
Mohanty, see: http://www.scribd.com/doc/27661953

For periodic updates, with links to work by the invited writers 
available online, visit or join our new facebook group: 
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=279757768380

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Ashwini Bhat at: 
almostisland.edit at gmail.com .

With kind regards,

Sharmistha Mohanty [Editor]
Vivek Narayanan [Consulting Editor]
Ashwini Bhat [Editorial Assistant]


*Evening Readings on the IIC Annexe Lawns*
(All are welcome…)

Thursday, March 18, 6:30 p.m.
Vivek Narayanan / Eliot Weinberger

Friday, March 19, 6:30 p.m.
Vahni Capildeo / Joy Goswami

Saturday, March 20, 6:00 p.m. (Note earlier start time)
Anita Agnihotri / Xu Xi / Charu Nivedita

Sunday, March 21, 6:30 p.m.
Sharmistha Mohanty / Tomaz Salamun


*Panels and Discussions*:

(Please note: panels are also open to all who wish to come, but 
*pre-registration is required*. Contact Ashwini Bhat -- 
almostisland.edit at gmail.com -- for more details.)

The overarching objective of the morning panels will be a dialogue 
around “innovation, the making of the new, the originary.” See: 
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27661953

for a more detailed presentation.

The writers’ presentations will be staggered as below. Each writer will 
have about 10-15 minutes for a basic laying out of thoughts; this is 
meant only to provoke a more extended, open-ended discussion among all 
the participants.

March 19, 10 a.m-1:00 p.m. : Sharmistha Mohanty, Tomaz Salamun, Vahni 
Capildeo

March 20, 10 a.m-1:00 p.m. : Vivek Narayanan, Eliot Weinberger, Charu 
Nivedita

March 21, 10 a.m.-1:00 p.m. : Xu Xi, Anita Agnihotri, Joy Goswami

There will also be a discussion with the invited audience on March 19, 
2:30-4:00


*Writer Biographies*

The Slovenian Tomaz Salamun is widely acknowledged to be one of the 
great post-war Central European poets, and indeed one of the 
“indispensable poets of [our] era” (Jorie Graham). He has over thirty 
books of poetry, including several in excellent translations, done by a 
range of poets. Recent titles in English include: The Book for My 
Brother (Harcourt), Poker (Ugly Duckling Presse) and The Selected Poems 
of Tomaz Salamun (Ecco Press).

Eliot Weinberger is a translator and essayist who first came into 
prominence as the primary translator of Octavio Paz. He writes an 
innovative prose that takes the documentary essay to the borders of 
poetry. He is considered among the most significant of prose stylists 
writing in English; his own work regularly appears in translation and 
has been published in some thirty languages. Weinberger’s recent books 
of essays include An Elemental Thing, Karmic Traces, and Oranges and 
Peanuts for Sale (all from New Directions). Translations include Vicente 
Huidobro’s Altazor, books by Bei Dao, and Borges’ non fiction.

Xu Xi is a fiction writer and essayist who pushes the borders of both, 
her fluidity a reflection of her life as a Hong Kong Chinese woman, born 
of Indonesian parents, writing in English. She is the author of seven 
books, including Overleaf Hong Kong, History's Fiction, The Unwalled 
City and, most recently, The Evanescent Isles.

Vahni Capildeo is at the vanguard of a new generation of Caribbean poets 
who are both fully conscious of their literary inheritance and ready to 
extend and transform it in startling ways. She is the author of three 
collections: No Traveler Returns, Person Animal Figure (a Guardian 
Poetry Book of the Year for 2005) and, most recently, Undraining Sea. 
Capildeo is experimental, but “without fear of traditional subjects or 
language” (Bernard O’Donoghue). She often works through the long 
sequence or book length poem.

Charu Nivedita was born and initially raised in rural Tamilnadu. He has 
four novels and many books of essays in Tamil. Zero Degree, his second 
novel, was published in English translation by Blaft Books in 2008. 
Deeply transgressive and radical in form and narrative structure, 
reminiscent of authors like William Burroughs or Kathy Acker, the book 
sent shock waves through the South Indian literary world (and became a 
huge success) when it first appeared in Tamil in 1998 and in Malayalam a 
year later.

Joy Goswami is one of Bengal's foremost poets. He has created an 
original poetic idiom in the language and given new directions to 
contemporary Bengali poetry. He has more than 30 published books, 
including three volumes of compiled poems numbering close to a thousand, 
12 novels, two of which are written in verse and 5 collections of 
essays. A book of poems in English translation by Sampurna Chattarji is 
to be published soon.

Anita Agnihotri is a poet and fiction writer who writes intensely and 
genuinely about the marginalized in rural India, among whom she has 
lived and worked. She writes in Bengali, but has published two books in 
English translation—Forest Interludes and The Awakening (both from 
Zubaan books).

Vivek Narayanan’s first book of poems, Universal Beach, appeared in 
2006. Publications in anthologies include: 60 Indian Poets (Penguin) and 
Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, 
Asia and Beyond (W.W. Norton). He works at Sarai-CSDS and is Consulting 
Editor for Almost Island.

Sharmistha Mohanty has published two novels, Book One and New Life, as 
well as a recent translation of Tagore's fiction, Broken Nest and Other 
Stories, for Tranquebar press. She is the founding Editor of Almost 
Island and the initiator of the Almost Island Dialogues.