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S A M P S O N I A WAYTHE AFGHAN WOMEN’S WRITING PROJECT | TSERING WOESER | CITY OF ASYLUM

TseringWoeser:Fearless Reporting

Behind China’s Great Firewall

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Tabasom, whose last name is withheld toprotect her identity, writes her poems insecret, then walks four hours throughTaliban-controlled territory to access anInternet connection in Kabul so she canshare her words with an online writingworkshop. Because women are forbiddento travel alone, her brother goes with her.He is the only one who knows what she isdoing; if someone else discovers that she isa woman who dares to write and share herwords with others, she could be beaten oreven killed.

The Afghan Women’s

Writing Project

By Elizabeth Hoover

M A Y 2 0 11 3Unfiltered Voices

Photo: Afghan manand his two wives atmarket. Credit: MieAhmt, istockphoto.

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Tabasom is a member of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project (AWWP), aseries of online writing workshops run remotely by women writers based inAmerica. In an effort to protect their participants, AWWP doesn’t allow forinterviews, however, the women describe their experiences in poems, essays,and comments published on AWWP’s website.

“I wish I wrote my destiny/ With silver colors of happiness/ That shined inmy life,” Tabasom writes in “Gold Hidden in a River.” The AWWP site not onlyallows Tabasom and other Afghan women writers to share their work, but it alsofosters conversations and connections with readers from around the globe.“Please keep writing,” a reader urges in the comment section under “GoldHidden in a River.” “Your poems will help others, your words release the painyou are in and give a voice for so many women who have no voice or are afraidto use their voice.”

Founder Masha Hamilton sees the comment section of theAWWP magazine as crucial to the program’s success. “Askingan Afghan woman to participate in a writing class is a lot toask,” she told Sampsonia Way. “We want them to know peo-ple are reading their stories.”

These connections can be especially meaningful for womenlike Tabasom, who lead isolated lives in territories held by theTaliban. Women in these areas are often confined to theirhomes and forbidden to work, travel, or attend school. Tabasomwrites that she would like to work but is afraid to, especially afterthe Taliban killed her aunt who was working as nurse.

In addition to allowing Afghan writers to connect with eachother and with a global readership, AWWP seeks to educatepeople around the globe about the condition of women in Afghanistan.According to their website, they give readers a chance to encounter the voicesof Afghan women, who are usually heard “only through the filter of their menand the media.”

From a Kitchen in BrooklynIn 1999, Hamilton, a journalist and novelist, saw a haunting video of a womannamed Zarmeena executed on a Kabul athletic field. The video ran on the APwire, but there was almost no information about the woman besides her name.“I realized not only were women being hidden under burqas, but their storieswere also hidden,” Hamilton said.

“Asking an Afghan woman to participate in a writing class is a lot to ask. We want them to know people are reading their stories.”Masha Hamilton

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She traveled to Afghanistan in 2004 and 2008 to search out these hidden sto-ries. On her second trip she found that “things were getting worse for women.”In recent years, the Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim group known for theirtreatment of women, has steadily regained the territory they lost after the 2001American invasion. The London-based International Council on Security andDevelopment estimates that currently 80 percent of Afghanistan is underTaliban control. According to UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fundfor Women, 60-80 percent of Afghan women are in forced marriages, oftenbefore they reach 16. Afghan women face high rates of domestic violence, sexu-al assault, and spousal murder.

Motivated by the belief that “the right to tell your story is a human right,”Hamilton set up an online writing workshop for some of the women she met inher travels and ran it from her kitchen table in Brooklyn. After the ten-weekclass ended, she realized how much the women needed a place to express them-selves freely. “I just couldn’t dump them,” she said.

Hamilton created three secure online classrooms and began to recruit otherAmerican women writers to act as mentors for a session. She also launched a blogwhere the Afghan women could publish their work. The blog eventually becamean online magazine complete with a team of editors. As the program grew andraised additional funds, AWWP was able to open the Women’s Writing Hut inKabul, a small apartment building furnished with computers and Internet. Now,some of the women who once only knew each another by their screen names cangather there in person to sip tea, read books, and share their work.

“Setting up an online classroom was easy,” said Hamilton. “The challenge wasconvincing the students that someone cares about their stories and is listening.”

When writer Rachel de Baere, one of the teachers recruited by Hamilton,began mentoring with AWWP, one of her primary concerns was to create a safeand supportive atmosphere. She told Sampsonia Way she wanted the women“to feel comfortable and connected in addition to enhancing their writingskills.” She provided weekly writing prompts, but also allowed the students toturn in “anything that needed to be written.” Each week, the women wouldpost their writing in the online classroom, and de Baere would comment, urgingthem to write with more detail or praising a particularly powerful phrase. Inaddition, the students commented on each other’s work. “They all learned tosupport and know each other,” de Baere said.

The experience was transformative for de Baere who said she was “moved totears daily by the power of their authenticity.” After her mentoring rotation was

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over, she continued to work with the project as the poetry editor of the maga-zine. In August 2010, she became AWWP’s director and is hoping to expand theprogram to include classes in Dari and build another writing hut. “Because theTaliban is coming back there will be greater risks, but also a greater need for theprogram,” she said.

De Baere believes these online writing workshops can be a powerful tool tohelp Afghan women. “Research shows writing helps significantly in healing fromtrauma, both physically and emotionally,” she said. “The very act of putting pento paper is a witnessing act, and it’s empowering to be a witness.” This senti-ment was echoed by participant Roya, who writes in her introduction on theAWWP that she wants to be a poet. She adds, “I took the pen and I wrote andeverything changed. I learned if I stand, everyone will stand, other women in mycountry will stand.”

“I am For Sale, Who Will Buy Me?”One writer found both the courage and the financial support needed to escapea forced marriage through her participation in AWWP. In January 2010, she pub-lished an essay called “I am for Sale, Who Will Buy Me?” Usually writers areidentified by their first name, but as an extra precaution, this essay was com-pletely anonymous. In the essay, the writer remembers, “I used to think big.”She dreamed of getting a college education, but after her father died her familyplunged into poverty. Her uncle offered to buy her for $20,000 as a wife for hisson. She writes, “I think if this happens, I won’t stay in this world; I will leavethe world for those who can live in it, who can find a solution.”

Readers responded with an outpouring of support in the comments sectionand created a fund to help the writer to match her bride price. In essence, shebought her own freedom. However she still lives in fear for her life, as sheexplains in a later essay. Her uncle was outraged she defied him and demandedshe appear before a tribal council. When she refused, he kidnapped one of herbrothers and cut off three of his fingers. Her mother has fled the country. Thewriter struggles with feelings of guilt because her decision to flee a forced mar-riage put her family in danger, but she still dreams of getting an education andher writing gives her strength for the future. In her essay, “Hope in the Unseen,”she writes, “It is childish and silly, but every morning I open my notebook andlist new desires, hopes, and plans for my unknown tomorrow.”

De Baere finds the mixture of “hope and bravery” in the women’s words tobe a source of inspiration. “The consequences for expressing themselves couldbe grave—they could be beaten or stoned,” de Baere added. Despite these risks,

Right: photo courtesy of Afghan Women’sWriting ProjectCredit: Heidi Levine

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“Research shows writing helps significantly in healing from trauma, both physically andemotionally. The very act of putting pen topaper is a witnessing act, and it’s empoweringto be a witness.” Rachel de Baere

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more that 50 Afghan women have published essays, poems, photographs, andshort stories on the site.

A sampling from their writing demonstrates an urgent need to expressthemselves, whether it be to rage about injustice against women or simplyshare what they see outside their window. Fariba writes, “Every time girls goto school/I feel totally changed/disappointment and anguish disappear.”Angela shares a proverb: “When a man is educated only one person is educat-ed, but when a woman is educated the whole family is educated.” A 16-year-old girl remembers the terror of being trapped at her school while anti-American protests enveloped her city after a U.S. convoy caused a deadly acci-dent. Seta visits a women’s prison to report on conditions there.

In addition, women contribute poems and essays that record daily life inAfghanistan, its struggles and its joys. Zakia’s spirits are lifted when she smellsfresh mint in her garden. Aisha conjures the nervous energy of a first date.Yagana writes that her grandmother’s kitchen is “Crowded as a fishmarket/With walls as white as a glass of milk/It is a place of love.” Mabel com-ments back to her “I remember well the fragrance of baking bread in my ownGrandmother’s kitchen on the Atlantic seaboard…Thank you!”

In order to contribute her voice to this panoply, Tabasom walks four hoursthrough Taliban territory, a short walk in her mind. She writes, “4 hour walk,isn’t it long? Not for my interest of writing, it is not far away.”

Above photos courtesy of Afghan Women’s Writing Project. Left: Seeta, photographer–Group of women in garment-making center. Middle: Ellaha, photographer–Kochi (nomad) women moving from one place to another because ofweather changes. Right: Roya, photographer–Sayad, in the northern district of Kabul.

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Woeser’s online journalism has earned her more than awards andinternational recognition; it’s also earned her harassment andconstant surveillance by the Chinese government. Undeterred,she continues to write, motivated by her desire to share the truthabout today’s Tibet with the world.

TseringWoeser:Fearless Reporting

Behind China’s Great Firewall

By Joshua Barnes

Photo courtesy of Tsering Woeser

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I first tried contacting Tsering Woeser, a self-described “one-person online newsstation,” in November 2010 via email. At that time she had traveled from her res-idence in Beijing, China to her childhood home in Lhasa, Tibet. Lhasa is not themost secure place for a one-person news station that reports on developmentsinside Chinese-occupied Tibet via two widely followed blogs and a Twitter feed.In the two months that passed before Woeser confirmed my identity and sentresponses to my questions, her blog Invisible Tibet was hacked for the fourthtime; her Gmail and Facebook accounts were tapped, and malicious emails weresent to her contacts list.

The fact that Woeser is a pro-Tibet blogger has earned her public enemy sta-tus from the Chinese government, which tightly regulates Internet traffic.According to Free Tibet, a Tibetan liberation organization, the Chinese occu-piers engage in systematic human rights abuses and seek to destroy Tibetan cul-ture, religion, and language. Since 2004 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)has required all Tibetan citizens to use an Internet access card, so they can mon-itor online activity.

The type of harassment Woeser experienced in November is nothing new. In2004, Chinese authorities stated that her book Notes on Tibet contained “polit-ical errors,” an accusation which caused her to lose her job as an editor for theTibet Autonomous Region Literature Association’s journal. She started bloggingthe following year and since then her sites have been the target of cyber attacks.In 2008, her blog’s home page was replaced with an image of the Chinese flagand a message calling her the “Tibet Separatist” and urging violence against her.

That same year, Woeser was visiting her mother in Lhasa when the house wasraided by Chinese police. “A man came into my room...and searched every cor-ner,” she wrote in her essay “They, They...” “He opened a file folder, and thelook on his face was like he had found a treasure. When he realized it was justmaterial from my mother’s workplace, he looked so disappointed.” Woeser wastaken to a police station where she was questioned and subjected to intimidationtactics for eight hours. She considers herself lucky that she wasn’t tortured.

Around the time of her arrest, pressure from overseas organizations likeReporters Without Borders prompted a spokesperson for the Chinese govern-ment to issue a statement claiming that accusations that they had arrested dissi-dents were “groundless.” Woeser believes she was released because China facedincreased international scrutiny in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics.

When questioned on the topic of her arrest, Woeser revealed distaste for herbehavior: “I was shocked to realize how submissive I had been. Why did I letthem take me away? Why did I answer every question they asked?” Such self-criticism, while harsh, isn’t difficult to understand; while resisting the CCP is a

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According to Free Tibet,a Tibetan liberationorganization, theChinese occupiersengage in systematichuman rights abusesand seek to destroyTibetan culture, religion,and language. Since2004 the ChineseCommunist Party (CCP) has required allTibetan citizens to use an Internet access card,so they can monitoronline activity.

Pictured: The ruins of Shide Tratsang Monasteryin Lhasa, Tibet. It wasdestroyed by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

Credit: David Kerkhoff,istockphoto

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rugged road to take, it’s one that Woeser has been traveling on since she startedher first blog, The Maroon Map.

Woeser’s journalism has been described as fearless by more than one source,including World Tibet News. Despite considerable risks, she documents what isimportant to her as a Tibetan, whether it be the preservation of Buddhist holidaysoutlawed by the CCP or an interview with a Tibetan monk following the March2008 protests in Lhasa, which left 20 dead and over 4,400 participants in police cus-tody. Even though her friends and family can also be punished for her work, Woeseropenly answered my questions about her tangles with the government and accusedthe CCP of having a direct involvement with the repeated shutdown of her sites.

Forbidden MemoriesBorn in 1966, Woeser grew up in occupied Tibet and dreamt of being anembedded journalist reporting from the front lines. Sharing stories aboutLhasa to her Chinese classmates when she was just 4-years-old prefigured herwork as a blogger telling the story of Tibet to the world.

Despite being half Tibetan, her father was an officer in the People’sLiberation Army during China’s 1950 invasion and forcible annexation ofTibet. Woeser remembered questioning her father when she was young: “My

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father used to tell me to learn to walk with two legs: one for my own path andone to follow social expectations. I didn’t agree with him and asked, couldn’tone of the legs be broken eventually? He didn’t answer.”

When asked about her relationship with her father Woeser said: “This is nota simple question and I cannot answer it in a few words.” She is currently work-ing on a novel about this topic, exploring her experience through a fictionalcharacter. “I need a moment of truth and intimacy to share unsettled feelings,”she said.

Her father’s involvement in the Cultural Revolution provided the materialfor her third book, Forbidden Memories: Tibet During the CulturalRevolution. During Mao’s “re-education” program thousands of Buddhist texts

were burned and Buddhist temples across Tibet ransacked. These inci-dents are crucial to understanding the nation’s current condition ofunrest. However, these events have mostly been erased by CCP-enforcedsilence. In his introduction to Forbidden Memories, scholar and novelistWang Lixiong writes that the most complete collection of records fromthe Cultural Revolution includes more than 10,000 files, transcripts, andother documents, but only 8 of those files are related to Tibet.

The sepia pictures are included in Tsering Woeser’s Forbidden Memories

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Woeser’s Forbidden Memories works to close this gap in history. It containshundreds of unpublished photos taken by Woeser’s father during his People’sLiberation Army duty. The volume includes several essays by Woeser and a col-lection of interviews she conducted with Tibetans from her father’s generation,which her mother helped translate into Chinese.

In 2006 the controversial Forbidden Memories was published in Taiwan.Woeser did not comment on her father’s level of involvement in the project.

“I’m a Tibetan Living in Exile”On December 17, 2007 Woeser was awarded the Norwegian Authors’ UnionFreedom of Expression Award for “bravely choosing to publish her books,despite content deemed controversial by the Chinese authorities.” She wasunable to attend the award ceremony in Oslo because, for the fifth year in a row,the Chinese government denied her a passport. Her request was denied on thegrounds of “national security,” a common accusation against dissidents.

In July of 2008 Woeser filed a suit against the Chinese government and tookthe case to Changchun Intermediate Court, where her husband is registered asa permanent resident. But her suit has been routinely delayed. “My chance ofgetting a passport is very slim,” she said.

Even if she could leave the country, Woeser said the trip would only be tem-porary. “I still want to stay in China because it’s closer to Tibet. I would like totravel abroad, if I have a chance, just to see what’s out there. But I will return,”she said.

A profile on Payhul.com, a web portal for Tibetan news and opinion, notesthat “Woeser’s writing provides a stark immediacy to events and brings themup-close and personal as no report by foreign journalists or ‘experts’ can, noteven exiled writers like [Jamyang Norbu].”

However, Woeser considers herself an exiled writer. She said she is “a Tibetanliving in exile in China, just like hundreds of thousands of Tibetans.” The CCPmaintains Tibet is officially part of China and places restrictions on Tibetan cul-tural practices, such as requiring Tibetan monks to attend “patriotic education”meetings that belittle the Dalai Lama, according to The Economist.

Woeser is working to prevent the CCP from completely erasing Tibetan his-tory. “If I don’t record and speak out, our nation will be silenced, history willbe altered...and younger generations will have no way of knowing. This one-per-son media is the only weapon given to those whose rights have been deprived,and I will carry it until the end,” Woeser stated.

Today Woeser isn’t taking notes while dodging gunfire like her childhooddream. Instead she is dodging cyber attacks to disseminate her work despiteCCP interference. Even if her sites are shutdown temporarily, Chinese andTibetan news sources have reprinted many of her essays, and her work has an

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Oh, two wings,

One is wisdom, one is courage,

I would not wish to be a bird,

Too smart or too imprudent.

...

Only with both,

Can you fly out of the three realms.

From Woeser’s “Flying”

English-language home on Highpeakspureearth.com. Threats and commentscalling her a “Tibetan dog” don’t make her renounce her ways: “I might getinto trouble, but I don’t care,” she said. “I want to let more people under-stand the situation and history of Tibet. Persistence is the key and change willcome, sooner or later.”

Photo courtesy of Tsering Woeser

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Tsering Woeser’s Blogging History

2005With encouragement from her husbandWang Lixiong, Woeser worked with thesite Tibetan Culture Net to post theMaroon Map, a site that attracted pre-dominately Tibetan viewers. WangxiuCaidan, manager of TibetCul at the time,said that between February 2005 and July2006 the Maroon Map had over 280,000 hits.

Oeser’s Blog, a Chinese-language bloghosted by a Chinese server, was startedin 2005 and primarily received Chinesevisitors. Oeser is an alternate Chinesespelling of Woeser.

2006The Maroon Map and Oeser's Blog wereboth shut down by order of the CCP’sUnited Front Work Department. Theserver that hosted Oeser’s Blog was per-manently shut down.

Tibetan Culture Net exists, now withouta Maroon Map section, but the site isstill subject to unannounced governmen-tal shut-downs.

2007In January, Woeser reposted Oeser’sBlog on an overseas server. The site wasshut down after one day online. Neitherthe Maroon Map nor Oeser’s Blog areviewable today.

Screenshot of Tibetan Culure Net website, a message board and blog dedicated to Tibetan cultural events.

Screenshot of Oeser’s Blog today.

Screenshot of Woeser’s current blog, Invisible Tibet.

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Woeser posted a new blog, the Woeser’sblog, on a different server after Oeser’sBlog was shut down.

2008According to a 2008 article from ChinaView, Woeser's Blog recorded 3 millionhits from Chinese and Tibetan visitorsbetween 2007 and 2008.

On May 27, Woeser’s Blog was hacked bya member of the Hongke Alliance, a groupof Chinese Nationalist Netizens that,according to Woeser, many people believeare supported by the Chinese government.

A few days later, Woeser’s fifth blogInvisible Tibet was up and running.

2010Invisible Tibet was hijacked on November23. It was restored several days later withthe help of a friend.

Invisible Tibet is still operational.

READ WOESER’S ESSAYS AND JOURNALISM ON HIGH PEAKS PURE EARTH, TIBET WRITES, AND CHINA DIGITAL TIMES.

WOESER'S POETRY AND BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE THROUGH RAGGED BANNER PRESS.

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Readings at Cityof Asylum

18 S A M P S O N I A W A Y

Welcoming thecontemporaryworld in the 17th century tradition.

< Khet Mar< Shahriar Mandanipour

< Richard Wiley >

Akhil Sharma >

Beverly Peréz Rego >

The salon-stylereadings bring the world to theNorthside, andPittsburghers welcome it withopen arms.

A

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t a reading hosted by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh last November,Iranian novelist Shahriar Mandanipour read an excerpt from his mostrecent novel, Censoring an Iranian Love Story. In the excerpt, ablind film censor listens to Dances with Wolves while a team of filmexperts describe what is happening on screen. They all agree that thefootage must be censored, but they wildly disagree about whichscenes to cut and how the film should be changed when dubbed intoFarsi. The censors struggle to replace a wedding scene and eliminateany implication that the characters had a romantic relationship.Finally, they invent a Native American ritual in which long-lost siblings celebrate their reunification.

The audience couldn’t help but laugh at the outlandish premise,despite the seriousness of political repression in Iran. But creatingthat mix of seriousness and laughter is what Mandanipour set out todo; he announced at the beginning of his reading that he wanted touse sadness for ironic purpose. In his remarks, he also described thedire situation in Iran where students and activists languish in solitaryconfinement and every day Iranians await the news of another execu-tion. The import of Mandanipour’s remarks lingered even amid thelaughter of the audience.

Perhaps “audience” isn’t exactly the right word for this group ofpeople gathered in the living room of Diane Samuels and HenryReese, the founders of COA/P, a location Mandanipour described asa “cozy, serious, literary place.” Because the readings are so intimateand encourage such lively discussions, the term “guests” or “partici-pants” is more apt.

Samuels and Reese have been hosting salon-style readings in theirhome since 2007. Samuels said they were inspired by the success ofCOA/P’s Jazz Poetry Concerts, an annual event that they started in2005. Now approximately 700 people attend the outdoor reading andconcert each year.

“If Pittsburgh weather were more gentle, we could present out-door readings year-round in the same spirit as Jazz Poetry,” Samuelssaid, adding they want to provide readings that are “free, casual, andnon-institutional.”

By Elizabeth Hoover

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Because they didn’t have other facilities besides the housesused for COA/P’s writers’ residences, Reese and Samuelsopened their own home. Having readings in their houseseemed like a natural choice to Samuels because “City of Asylumis all about hospitality.” She said that some of the regular atten-dees have become “acquaintances and friends,” and hosting thereadings helped her get to know her neighbors better.

The first salon-style reading in their home was with writer-in-residence Horacio Castellanos Moya. They announced it viae-mail and asked people to RSVP. By the next day, all 45 spotswere filled. They scheduled a second reading for the followingmonth for those who didn’t it make it on the list for the first.Castellanos Moya was born in Honduras and lived in ElSalvador before coming to Pittsburgh in 2006. He read fromSenselessness, a novel in the voice of an increasingly paranoidman hired to edit the horrific testimonies of people who sur-vived a mass killing in an unnamed Latin American country.This was Castellanos Moya’s first novel translated into English.

Since that first reading they have hosted an additional 19,and each one fills up almost immediately. “As soon as I get thee-mail, I reply,” said Adel Fougnies, a retired reading special-ist and long-time Northside resident.

Fougnies attends every reading she can. “There is some-thing raw and authentic about hearing the words in theauthor’s voice,” she said. Some of the authors have includedVijay Nair of India, Jim Powell of England, Glaydah Namukasaof Uganda, and Marius Ivaškevicius of Lithuania. There havealso been North American authors such as George Packer,Russell Banks, Richard Wiley, and Northsider Hilary Masters,as well as translators reading from poems and novels they havetranslated.

Samuels said she watches the guests “tune into the accentsof the international writers reading in English. In the begin-ning, people are leaning forward to hear, but then somethingclicks and they relax. The accents are quite beautiful, anotherkind of music.”

Don Staricka, who moved from Los Angeles to Homestead,said he especially enjoyed hearing Venezuelan poet BeverlyPérez Rego read in Spanish this January. Compared to otherreadings he finds the events at COA/P “more civilized; people

City of AsylumSalons’ Links

March 2011Khet MarCloudscapeInterviewShips in the Mist

January 2011Beverly Peréz Rego Interview

October 2011Jim Powell

November 2010Shariar Mandanipour

April 2010Akhil Sharma

June 2010Letras Latinas: Fracisco Aragón Brenda Cárdenas

January 2010Maxine CaseMarius Ivaškevicius

December 2009George Packer

November 2009Er Tai Gao

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sit in chairs, there’s no smoking, no sound of a cappuccinomaker.” He added that he is “astounded” that the readings arefree. He was about to continue, but stopped himself. “I don’twant to inspire people to compete for a seat,” he quipped.

Northsider Sheila Carter-Jones, a poet and retired schoolteacher, has been coming to readings for a year now to “listento writers share their craft.” She takes notes during the readings,which sometimes inspire her to create her own poems. “It’s aworld eye on creativity,” she added. “These readings bring part ofthe world you might not otherwise be aware of.” She especiallyliked hearing Mandanipour, but by the time she got to the booktable his books were sold out. He signed her notebook for herinstead. COA/P subsequently arranged for Mandanipour to signbooks for all those who were unable to get them at the reading.

Before the readings, there is usually a reception catered byKate Romane of Flying Biscotti. After the reading, the authorchats one-on-one with interested guests over locally madedesserts like macaroons and biscotti. Samuels said guests lingeruntil around 9:00. Maxine Case, a South African author whoread last February, remembered her reading fondly. “Somereadings you want to slink away from and others you want tostay and chat—this was definitely the latter!” she remarked.

“It was great to read in such a creative and intimate space…Iwas able to relax and build a rapport with the attendants,”Case added. Samuels also thinks the intimacy helps the guestsconnect with the authors and allows for lively discussions dur-ing the question-and-answer session. She remembered whenthe Chinese author Er Tai Gao read in November 2009, some-one asked him what the situation is like in China. He comparedit to 1941 Germany. “This kind of comment gives a chilling per-spective on what is happening in the world right now,”Samuels said.

Current COA/P writer-in-residence Khet Mar had theopportunity to talk about the situation in her home country ofBurma on March 3th. She read with poets Michelle Gil-Montero and Román Antopolsky who have translated her workinto both English and Spanish. Within a day of the announce-ment, the 65 available slots had filled up. With this reading,they also had a hefty waiting list.

October 2009Horacio Castellanos Moya

September 2009Hilary Masters

April 2009Richard Wiley

December 2008Glaydah Namukasa

October 2008Russell Banks

May 2009Katherine Silver

February 2008Bill Johnson

November 2007Jill Schoolman

May 2007Dr. Arthur Levine Dr. Bernie Freydberg

March 2007Horacio Castellanos Moya

February 2007Horacio Castellanos Moya

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Khet Mar arrived in Pittsburgh in March 2009 and hasenjoyed attending readings on Sampsonia Way. She said that theparticipants are “like a family” because they get to know oneanother. The readings have also provided an opportunity for herto meet and talk with international writers, a rare instance inBurma. “I lived in Burma my whole life and met two interna-tional writers there,” she said. “I can’t count how many I havemet since I have come here.”

As an example she cited Akhil Sharma, a fiction writer whowas born in India and migrated to the United States as a child.In April 2010, she talked with him about their respective home-lands. “We are neighbors; India is next door to Burma,” sheexplained. “Having a conversation like that is impossible inBurma.” Indeed, readings of any kind are rare in Burma.

“The readings at COA/P are windows through which youcan see the rest of the world,” Khet Mar said. “I wish my peo-ple could have the same experience.”

“The readings atCOA/P are windowsthrough which youcan see the rest ofthe world. I wishmy people couldhave the sameexperience.”Khet Mar

“It’s a world eye oncreativity. Thesereadings bring partof the world youmight not otherwisebe aware of.” Sheila Carter-Jones

Photo: Laura Mustio