Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership

An umbrella group for writers in the Asia-Pacific

 WELCOME TO THE ASIA-PACIFIC WRITING PARTNERSHIP. 

The Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership brings together individuals and organisations interested in new writing from the world’s most populous and dynamic region, the Asia-Pacific.

This is an inclusive organisation with a membership comprising established and emerging writers, translators, teachers in creative writing programs, scholars associated with literary studies, literary festival directors, publishers, writers’ circles, and many others.

In collaboration with partners, we aim to continue to provide forums, networking opportunities, workshops, and other initiates to foster and promote the literary arts in Asia and the Pacific.

Membership to the Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership is free. Please register if you would like to be kept up to date on activities in the region.

We appreciate support from donors, sponsors and benefactors.

 

 

Writing the Future: festival wrap-up

‘Writing the Future’ was the first festival of its type celebrating new writing from Asia and the Pacific. It was a joint initiative between the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership, an initiative started in Australia.

Jane Camens, left, and Rukmini Bhaya Nair (pic by Menka Shivdasani/ "Every Tuesday") 
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This enriching festival offered a unique blend of creative writing workshops, academic interaction, and public events. This celebration was the Partnership’s inaugural major event in what is anticipated will be an annual major celebration of writing from the region held in different locations each year throughout Asia or the Pacific.

It is hoped that these events will stimulate further local events. We believe this Festival was a timely start of an important new form of cultural cooperation which will provide valuable opportunities for new writers in the region for years to come.

It will eventually provide a forum that challenges outmoded boundaries between academic and creative texts, between traditional pasts and technological futures, between the new and old media and between genres, cultures and institutions.

This unique Festival, which combined a regional focus with a truly international reach, was a step towards raising the profile of the enormously rich literature and thought of the Asia Pacific region.

Registered participants included writers and scholars from Australia, Bangladesh, Fiji, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, UK and USA. The interest was a measure of the felt need for self-expression and interaction across the region.

Our goals were to:

• bring the excitement of reading new literature to a wide audience across the region;

• enable young writers and university students to interact with well-known writers; and

• encourage cultural cross-talk & literary debate across a variety of regional languages

THE PROGRAM

The Festival included the following activities:

Creative writing workshops for emerging writers from the region, taught by writers of international repute - a festival feature that is familiar in the West but has never before been part of South Asian literary events. Emerging writers in the West have over the past decades gained tremendous benefit and advantage from workshops with peers and established writers, but there are few equivalent opportunities in Asia. This festival aimed to be a step towards changing this situation.

Translation workshops, undertaken in collaboration with the Indian Academy of Letters and the Jamia Millia University. These workshops were held in four languages, Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Tamil.

A major academic conference on new writing from Asia and the Pacific The conference examined contemporary writing from the region, the value of writing programs, the contrasts and synergies between traditional oral forms of literature and new forms of writing influenced by multi-media, the state of national literary studies, and notions of writing in relation to regional, hybrid and/or diasposric identities globalization, cosmopolitanism, post-colonialism, and other associated issues. The conference crossed several disciplines, from literature to culture and social studies and psychology.

Public events featuring established writers and performers of international repute. These included readings by emerging and established writers; panel discussions with publishers, literary agents, and writers; book launches; and cultural performance by Indian poets, theatre-people and singers.

 

Participants

In addition to around 40 emerging writers from India and around the world who attended workshops, among the distinguished symposium speakers and workshop leaders were:

Harry Aveling, Extra Ordinary Professor of Translation Studies, University of Indonesia.

Jane Camens, writer and Executive Director, Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership.

Vijayasree Chaganti, translator and editor, Osmania Univeristy.

Jon Cook, Dean, Arts and Humanities, Director of the Centre for Creative and Performing Arts, University of East Anglia.

Keki Daruwall, poet and fiction writer.

Shashi Deshpande, novelist.

John Drew, Convenor, Cambridge Poetry Workshop.

Kaiser Haq, poet, Dhaka University.

Rukshida Jalil, writer, translator, media co-ordinator, Jamia Milia Islamia.

Robin Hemley, Director of Nonfiction Writing Program, University of Iowa.

Nicholas Jose, Australian writer currently based at the University of Western Sydney.

Lakshmi Kannan, poet and translator.

Malashri Lal, University of Delhi

Ritu Menon, publisher.

Satendra Nandan, novelist, University of Fiji.

Lakshmi Pamuntjak, an Indonesia poet and writer, on literature and fundamentalism.

Nishant Shah, director of the Centre for Internet & society, Bangalore.

Dinah Roma-Sianturi, poet and Director of De La Salle University's Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Centre, who teaches literature and writing at De La Salle University in Manila.

Frank Stewart, Editor, Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing.

Mark Tully, journalist and writer.

Ashok Vajpiyi, poet and Chair of the Lali Kala Academy.

Pavan V. Varma, Director General, Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

Gillian Wright, author and translator.

Xu Xi, a Chinese-Indonesian novelist, Vermont College.

Publications

Some papers from the conference, as well as related articles, fiction and poetry, can be read in the September-October 2008 Indian Review of Books, edited by Rukmini Bhaya Nair,  Biblio. (link in left column.)

Audio download

Post festival interview with Rukmini Bhaya Nair on Australian ABC Radio National’s Bookshow.

Sponsors

We extend deep and sincere thanks to the sponsors, without whom ‘Writing the Future’ would not have been possible:

Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi

Indian Council for Cultural Relations

Sanskriti Foundation

Indian Institute for Advanced Studies, Shimla

Sahitya Akademi or National Academy of Letters

Delhi University

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Jamia Millia Islamia University

A participant's comment

"It gave me the opportunity to get some very interesting insights into the publishing industry (thanks largely to Ritu Menon, Nicholas Jose, Harry Aveling, Frank Stewart, and Nabaneeta Dev Sen), (as well as) listen to some very moving poetry (K. Satchidanandan and Rabindra Ray), exchange views with professionals from the academic and publishing worlds, and recite two poems of my own. Thank you so much once again.”

Sonya Singh, poetry workshop participant,