Financial support
Open Society Institute –Assistance Foundation.
Project Duration:
April 1, 2010-October 31, 2010
Responsible organization for the project implementation
“Sonmaz Mashal” Cultural Relations Public Union and the Azerbaijan University of Languages
Description of the project
Azerbaijan has a rich tradition of regional socially and politically relevant literature, including much by women. Since independence, economic, political and social reorganization has led to a challenging literary arts environment, particularly for women. Literature can serve as a mirror to a nation and society; we see with new eyes the way things are and also begin to imagine the ways they can be—both critical steps on the road to a more open and vital society. Gender issues affect all levels of society. Moreover, women are by far the majority of teachers, particularly language and literature teachers, in Azerbaijan. This project directly involves the population most likely to effect reform on gender issues and in literary arts education. This project supports and builds the creative capacity and openness of the Azerbaijani literary arts community and encourages new writers, particularly women, to bring the country’s strong literary tradition into contact with critical contemporary issues to foster a dynamic, open society.
“Sonmaz Mashal” Cultural Relations Public Union brought together the American ,Turkish and Azerbaijani woman writers to support the development of the Azerbaijan literary environment and promote artistic exploration of gender issues. The project has three overlapping goals: artistic support and enrichment, public awareness, and capacity building through modeling and education. Together, these goals support stimulation of a contemporary, socially relevant literary environment.
The events realized within the project framework:
- An intensive creative writing workshop was organized between guest writers and Azerbaijani writers to share work and produce new writing in the context of contemporary social and gender issues discussion and to generate pilot creative writing curriculum. (Six full days, June 7-15, 2010) .
- Preparation for the workshop was conducted both over email and locally in the months and days preceding the workshop:
- Approximately 17 Azerbaijani women writers attended the workshop together with organizers (“Sonmaz Mashal” and guest writers), twelve Azeri writers were able to attend every
- Participants chose a name for the planned workshop publication, BUTA, and began selecting from new and existing writing pieces for inclusion.
Development of model creative writing curriculum and placement in www.translit.az for use by Azerbaijani educational institutions and workshop participants. After the guest-writers’ departure the collaboration continued for three months and curriculum materials were completed and placed jn www.translit.az