Brown's International Writers Project Fellowship seeks support of its own

The Brown Daily News reports that thanks to two major gifts this month, Brown's Literary Arts Program and The Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies will be able to continue to fund their International Writers Project Fellowship—but only for the next two years. Visiting professor of literary arts Robert Coover has made it a goal to fund an endowment for the fellowship, something it's never had in its 20 year history. Until the recent funding arrived, Coover states that they weren't even sure they'd be able to the fellowship this February.

The fellowship was designed to bring writers facing persecution in their home countries to Brown and provide a protected environment to produce work that would otherwise face censorship and put its authors at risk. "It provides health benefits, a stipend and living expenses for the fellow and the fellow's family. That figure also includes funds to remove the fellow from his or her country of origin and, if necessary, from prison." The current fellow, Kho Tararith, discusses the opportunities the program has provided him, as well as why authors like himself must go abroad to seek safety: "When we are inside, we don't have connections abroad." Through the IWP fellowship, Tararith has been able to reach more of his countrymen than if he had stayed in Cambodia.

"I have an office to write, send my writings to my students in Cambodia, write for the blogs and media for people to read them," said Kho Tararith, this year's fellow. Tararith is a Cambodian poet, writer, publisher and educator whose writings and promotion of human rights and democracy in Cambodia had attracted death threats and verbal attacks at home. He also helped to found PEN-Cambodia, an international organization that promotes freedom of expression and condemns censorship.