The International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa will welcome Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian author Wole Soyinka to the UI Sunday, Nov. 6. He will take part in two free, public events: He will receive the Rex Honey African Studies Lectureship Award, presented by the UI African Studies Program, at 3:30 p.m. in Shambaugh Auditorium of the UI Main Library; and he will read from his work at 7:30 p.m. in the Englert Theatre.

The Englert and Prairie Lights Books are excited to host Susan Orlean on Thursday, October 20 at 8 pm. Orlean will read from her new book "Rin Tin Tin: The Life and The Legend".

"Leaner than Light: 12 Frames of Paul Engle" An audio video production of a play by Lisa Schlesinger Produced and edited by Lisa DiFranza Audio engineered by Ben Schmidt View Video A note from playwright Lisa Schlesinger: "At the end of his life, Paul Engle was working on a memoir called Paul Engle Country which, he specifies, wasn’t in chronological order. I imagine that this is because as a poet, Paul Engle conceived of the world in images, and moments of meaning connected by associative imagination rather than chronological time. When I began to research Leaner than Light, I was

As part of a national tour presented by Copper Canyon Press to mark the publication of Push Open the Window, a contemporary Chinese poetry anthology bringing together over a hundred poems by some of China’s most important poets born after 1945, Xi Chuan and Zhou Zan, two of China’s leading poets will be visiting Iowa City for a bilingual reading today, 8 pm, at the Shambaugh House. Zhou Zan, a native of Jiangsu Province, born in 1968, has published poems, criticism, and a translation of Margaret Atwood’s poetry. Editor of the prominent women’s poetry journal Wings, she was recently a visiting scholar at Columbia University.

Last week, Justin Torres, a 2010 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, returned to Iowa City to read from his debut novel We the Animals. Before his reading at Prairie Lights, Torres appeared on the University of Iowa radio station KRUI's program The Lit Show to discuss the book and its path to print. The talk took place from 2-3 PM on September 21st. "The book is a meditation on a pronoun: we," writes Joe Fassler, host of The Lit Show. "Three brothers move as one through a rundown town in Upstate New York, their six arms throwing rocks, hurling open-palm slaps, pulling close in a fighting, biting embrace.

The Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature website features several new 'On the Fly' videos, including 'A Tribute to Christopher Merrill', in which Sally Mason (University of Iowa President), Derek Willard (Special Assistant to the President for Governmental Relations), and Josh Schamberger (President, Iowa City/Coralville Area CVB) discuss Christopher Merrill and the significance of Iowa City's recent designation as a UNESCO City of Literature. Additional videos feature Horacio Castellanos Moya, Eduardo Halfon, Mona Simpson, James Tate and more. Watch the videos here: On the Fly archives

The latest installment of the Live Discussion series featured poet Ilya Kaminsky, one of this fall’s Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professors at the University of Iowa. Mr. Kaminsky participated in an on-line chat about his poetry, his humanitarian work, his career as a translator and editor, as well as other literary topics. The chat took place Sept. 19th from 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. (Central Time). Click here to read the Live Discussion