By Girindra Selleck
At 4 p.m. Oct. 25, three of Iowa City’s most exciting writers will come together for a joint reading at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St.
Yael Neeman (Israel)
Yael Neeman, a decorated Israeli writer who began to have success both in popular and critical circles in the early 2010s for her book We Were the Future, will be reading from a collection of short stories titled The Option, translated by Jessica Cohen, one of the world’s foremost Hebrew translators.
With international writers, one of the biggest concerns can be ensuring the integrity of the work and the words’ original meaning doesn’t become compromised during translation. There is no such concern in the case of Neeman, however.
“I really felt very confident [with the translation],” Neeman said. “She understands very deeply what I wrote.”
Neeman will read a story titled “Guests,” which takes place in a couple’s home as they are faced with the problem of having two unwanted guests who refuse to leave. The story is satirical, focusing on situations such as what happens when people who hold contrasting political viewpoints are forced to interact with one another.
“I wanted to choose something that didn’t need a lot of context,” Neeman said. “So this is a very universal story.”
Neeman is attending the International Writing Program as a writer in-residence while she works on her next book.
Although she has been working on the follow-up to The Option for years now, and, despite pressure from her publisher, Neeman said writing must take its natural course.
“You cannot know when [it will be completed]; these kinds of things have their own energy,” Neeman said.
Sara Baume (Ireland)
Irish writer Sara Baume, whose 2015 release Spill Simmer Falter Wither has been an incredible success, chose to read from a new short story titled “Green Mud Gold,” the title of which is a play-on-words the colors of the Irish flag (green, white, and gold).
Baume was the recipient of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, a distinguished Irish literary prize awarded to a writer of “exceptional promise” under the age of 40, and was recently long-listed for The Guardian’s First Book Award.
She, along with Yael, is one of this semester’s writers in-residence at the IWP until mid-November, and is promoting her book in her home country.
Jenna Sauers (New Zealand)
Jenna Sauers, originally from New Zealand, attended the University of Iowa as an undergraduate (and wrote for the DI), obtaining a B.A. in French and English in 2007 before moving to New York City to work full-time as a freelance writer. She has worked extensively as a contributor to Jezebel, The Guardian, the New York Times, Bookforum, and the New York Observer, among many others.
Sauers, an M.F.A. candidate in the UI Nonfiction Writing Program, will read from her M.F.A. thesis on Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta, whose time in Iowa City living, working, and attending the University of Iowa (B.A. ’69, M.A. ’72, and M.F.A. ’77) has left a significant mark on the city.
“[She] has a very unusual and special connection to the state of Iowa,” Sauers said. “Iowa City feels like a place that in a way is still very much haunted by her.”
Mendieta was a multimedia artist who garnered acclaim in the 1970s for her pioneering work in sculpture, film, photography, and performance art that tackled the subjects of violence and displacement, echoing the artist’s uprooting from her homeland of Cuba as a young girl.
Some of her most famous work, created as part of her UI M.F.A. thesis, is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In recent years, Mendieta has also been the subject of retrospectives at the Guggenheim, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Galerie Lelong, among others.
Mendieta married famed minimalist sculptor Carl Andre in 1985 after a six-year partnership, but during a visit to Andre’s apartment in New York, she tragically died, falling from the building’s 34th story.
Her death has long since been the topic of debate; Andre was charged and subsequently acquitted in his wife’s death.
“There is a section [in my thesis] about her legacy; how her memory is being taken up by a new generation of activists, many of whom couldn’t know her because they were too young, but still feel a strong and visceral connection to her work, and I guess I would have to count myself among that group,” Sauers said.
The controversy regarding Mendieta’s death experienced a bit of a resurgence in May of this year when, at a retrospective for Carl Andre held at the Dia:Beacon Gallery in Beacon, New York, protesters decorated the gallery’s entrance with chicken blood and guts.
With her thesis, Sauers strives to remind the world that, like scenes from her famed Silueta series, Mendieta’s imprint on the world can still be seen; one just has to know where to look.
WORDS
What: IWP/Nonfiction Writing Program Reading, Sara Baume, Yael Neeman, & Jenna Sauers
When: 4 p.m. Oct. 25
Where: Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque
Admission: Free
