
BOA poet
Adrie Kusserow (
Refuge, 2013) will join a team of American writers on a reading tour to Sudan this October, as part of the University of Iowa's
International Writing Program.
Each year, in partnership with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, the International Writing Program "organizes reading tours to a country/region with a relatively sparse history of literary liaisons with the contemporary United States."
Through public readings and cultural excursions on the tours, important and well-established American writers are connected to "new and distinct literary-cultural landscapes," while international colleagues and students are given opportunities to "meet with a group of distinguished representatives of the current American literary scene."
While in Sudan, Kusserow will have the opportunity to participate in public readings, visit international universities and literary institutions, encounter cultural personalities and media, and visit sites which increase understanding of historical and current affairs of the region.
An anthropologist, Kusserow’s ethnographic collection
Refuge probes culture and globalization with poems about Sudanese refugees based in Uganda, Sudan, and the United States, especially the “Lost Boys of Sudan.” The poet struggles with how to respond to suffering, poverty, displacement, and the brutal aspects of war. Much of this exploration is based in poems in which a mother is also bringing her family to a larger global arena.
Her new spring 2013 collection
Refuge is available at the
BOA Bookstore.