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Kosovar writer Laura Kanushev recounts life under Milosevic and reads poem in Iowa City
Summary
At an Iowa City Foreign Relations Council event, International Writing Program resident Laura Kanushev described growing up in Kosovo under Slobodan Milosevic, the 1990s makeshift schools and 1999 expulsions, and read a poem reflecting on Iowa City and her grandmother.
Laura Kanushev, identified in the program as an International Writing Program fall resident, told an Oak Knoll audience in Iowa City on an ICFRC stage that she was born in Pristina in 1981 and spent her childhood amid political repression and mass protests.
Kanushev described school segregation after Kosovo’s autonomy was revoked under Slobodan Milosevic, saying Albanian students were moved to basement classrooms while Serbian students used the upper floors. She described a community response in the 1990s that established “makeshift” schools; she said some reports indicated up to 8,000 high‑school students experienced a mass poisoning event that many at the time described as chemical in nature. “We built a parallel education system,” she said, crediting families and teachers who offered rooms in private homes to keep schooling alive.
Christopher Merrill, director of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, told the audience the program lost nearly $1,000,000 in U.S. Department of State funding earlier in the year and that private support helped assemble a reduced fall residency for 23 writers from 20 countries. Merrill framed the evening as part of that improvised residency.
Kanushev recounted the 1999 expulsions and displacement of Kosovars during the war; she said that period saw nearly 1,000,000 people driven from their homes before NATO intervened and Serbian forces withdrew. She said Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and has since developed national institutions and a growing cultural scene, including international poetry festivals and the Sunny Hill Festival organized by Dua Lipa.
During a brief question-and-answer session, audience members asked about the role of coffee bars and informal cultural spaces in sustaining literature and civic life; Kanushev said those venues hosted poetry readings, debates and community organizing and called them central to cultural resilience. She also acknowledged ties between Iowa and Kosovo—training links for military cadets and university collaborations—but said she was in Iowa as a writer in residence.
Kanushev closed by reading a poem in English that invoked Iowa City and her grandmother’s practical thriftiness, contrasting modest daily survival with the formal debates of literary life. The host thanked her, noted ways to support future ICFRC programs, and closed the evening.
The event included a short fundraising appeal by the host at the start and information about ICFRC programming; no formal actions or votes were taken.
