University of East Anglia to launch its first international writing programme next year with a course in India

Updated on: Monday, November 19, 2012

UK’s University of East Anglia (UEA) is to launch its first international writing programme next year with a course in India.

In March 2013 the university will run a creative writing course in Kolkata, led by award-winning author and UEA professor of contemporary literature Amit Chaudhuri and distinguished novelist Romesh Gunesekara.

Modelled on UEA’s pioneering Creative Writing MA, the eight-day course will be for students who wish to develop their skills as writers of fiction through a series of intensive workshops, tutorials and lectures. Both tutors will give public talks, Chiki Sarkar, publisher of Penguin India, will be a visiting speaker during the course and eminent Bengali writers will be invited to address the students.

Twenty-four places are available on the course, which begins on March 25. The deadline for applications is January 30, 2013. Course fees are Rs 25,000 (Indian rupees), approximately £290 (British pounds), excluding accommodation. A limited number of bursaries will be available to appropriately qualified applicants to help meet the costs of participating. Local administrative staff will advise successful applicants about accommodation and other queries.

Applicants worldwide should send a 2000-word sample of their writing, with CV and a reference, to the School of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom. For further information contact Brigitte Nelson on +44 (0)1603 597592, email [email protected] or visit www.uea.ac.uk/creativewriting/news

At the end of the course, students will receive a certificate of completion and there will be an opportunity for them to find out about applying to UEA’s Creative Writing MA. Scholarship funding for the MA may be available to appropriately qualified applicants. All students will also be offered advice and support from the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook on further developing their writing skills and publishing their work.

The programme has been set up by Prof Chaudhuri and Prof Jon Cook, director of creative & performing arts at UEA, and builds on current writing initiatives includingthe Charles Pick South Asia Fellowship and the university’s collaboration with Guardian Masterclasses.

Chaudhuri said: “The University of East Anglia runs the best-known creative writing programme in the UK and one of the most highly regarded in the world. It is the first time we have taken the programme abroad and this new initiative has lots of exciting possibilities – to do with the craft of writing as well as critical discussion - for everyone involved, including, I hope, the city in which the first workshop will take place, a city with a historic cultural legacy.

“Nothing like this has been done before in India and from the reaction we have had to the idea it seems to be a welcome and timely initiative. If successful this inaugural international writing programme could be followed by others.” Chaudhuri, who teaches on the MA in Creative Writing as well as the PhD in Creative and Critical Writing, added that applicants were welcome from across the world.

The first UEA India Creative Writing workshop is taking place in collaboration with the British Council, India, and Oxford Bookstores, Kolkata. Along with the Charles Pick South Asia Fellowship, the university’s India-related activities also include the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize and a planned annual translation course in India led by the British Centre of Literary Translation at UEA.

The Creative Writing MA at UEA was the first of its kind in the UK when founded by Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson in 1970-1971. Since then the programme has grown to encompass courses at undergraduate, postgraduate and research level, with MA strands in Prose Fiction, Poetry, Scriptwriting and Lifewriting. Former tutors include Bradbury, Angela Carter, Rose Tremain, WG Sebald, Andrew Motion, and many other distinguished writers. Alumni include Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rose Tremain, Anne Enright, Andrew Miller, Toby Litt, Mohammed Hanif, Tash Aw, Neel Mukherjee and Anjali Joseph.

In 2012 the university’s creative writing programme was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education, the UK’s most prestigious higher education award, in recognition of its continuing excellence in delivering innovative courses at a world-class level.

University of East Anglia to launch its first international writing programme next year with a course in India

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