January 18, 2006  

Iranian novelist Shahriar Mandanipour arrived at Brown University this month to become the third International Writers Project (IWP) Fellow. IWP is a partnership between Brown’s Literary Arts Program and the Watson Institute, where the fellow resides during their appointment at Brown. Mandanipour is regarded as one of the most accomplished and successful writers in contemporary Iran. His honors include the Mehregan Award for the best Iranian children's novel of 2004, the 1998 Golden Tablet Award for best fiction in Iran during the previous two decades, and Best Film Critique at the 1994 Press Festival in Tehran.

Robert Coover, the T. B. Stowell Adjunct Professor of Literary Arts and an award-winning novelist, developed IWP to provide writers the opportunity to practice their craft in an environment free of political oppression. Fellows usually work within literary genre such as fiction, drama, or poetry. The fellowship itself offers a year’s residency at the University and full access to the resources and support of its faculty and students, especially within the Literary Arts Program and the Institute. Additionally, the project features each year a speaker series focused on human rights and free expression globally and a festival highlighting the particular national artistic and political identity of the resident writer. Fellow Iranian novelist Shahrnush Parsipour was the first IWP fellow in 2003–2004, and Congolese playwright Pierre Mumbere Mujomba was the second in 2004–2005.

Mandanipour is the author of nine volumes of fiction, one nonfiction book, and more than 100 essays in genre such as literary theory, literature and art criticism, creative writing, censorship, and social commentary. His five collections of short stories include The Eighth Day of the Earth, Violent Orient, Midday Moon, Mummy and Honey, and Shadows of the Cave. A recent work, Ultramarine Blue, gathers together 11 stories that relate in various ways to the events of 9/11. He is the author of the two-volume novel, The Courage of Love. Since 1999, he has been the chief editor of Asr-e Panjshanbeh (Thursday Evening), a monthly literary journal published in Shiraz. While at Brown, Mandanipour will complete a new novel.

The William H. Donner Foundation funds the International Writers Project.