In Our Languages: Readings, Performance, Music - Lost in Books: A multi-lingual pop-up bookstore and festival within a festival

Dr Nadia Niaz

Nadia Niaz is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. She grew up in Colombo, Islamabad, Geneva, New Delhi, New York City, Washington DC, Kathmandu, and Lahore. She was raised trilingual in English, Urdu and French, and can read and/or understand several related languages as well. Nadia researches multilingual creative expression, the politics and practicalities of translation, and the idea of ‘belonging’ in multiple contexts. She founded and ran the Australian Multilingual Writing Project – a platform for publishing creative work that mixes languages – from 2018 to 2022 and her poetry collection, The Djinn Hunters, came out in 2023.

Qanun: Vahideh Eisaei

Vahideh Eisaei is an Iranian-Australian artist, Qanun player, composer, singer, poet, and scriptwriter based in Melbourne. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran and a Master of Music from the University of Western Australia. Since migrating to Australia, Vahideh has blended her deep knowledge of Persian music with a contemporary approach, creating a distinctive body of work that reflects her journey as a migrant woman. Her multidisciplinary practice also encompasses poetry and scriptwriting, which she weaves into her performances and artistic projects to explore themes of identity, belonging, and cultural memory.

Soprano: Billie Tumarkin

Dr Nadia Niaz

Nadia Niaz is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. She grew up in Colombo, Islamabad, Geneva, New Delhi, New York City, Washington DC, Kathmandu, and Lahore. She was raised trilingual in English, Urdu and French, and can read and/or understand several related languages as well. Nadia researches multilingual creative expression, the politics and practicalities of translation, and the idea of ‘belonging’ in multiple contexts. She founded and ran the Australian Multilingual Writing Project – a platform for publishing creative work that mixes languages – from 2018 to 2022 and her poetry collection, The Djinn Hunters, came out in 2023.

Rosario Lazaro Igoa

Rosario Lázaro Igoa is a Uruguayan writer, literary translator, and researcher. She is the literary programs director at Think+Do Tank Foundation. Over the past fifteen years, Rosario has built a career at the intersection of creative writing, literary translation, and research in translation. She is the author of the nouvelle Mayito (2006) and the short story collections Peces mudos (2016) and Cráteres artificiales (2021), both published by Criatura Editora; the latter received the second National Literature Prize in Uruguay. Alongside her writing, she works as a literary translator from Portuguese and English into Spanish. She co‑edited and translated Mário de Andrade’s Crónicas de melancolía eufórica (2016) and has translated authors including Edmund de Waal, Danielle McLaughlin, and Beatriz Bracher.

Stef Irawan

As a literary translator, Stefanny Irawan translates from Indonesian to English and vice-versa. Her published works include the Indonesian translation of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, as well as the English translation of Anindita F. Thayf’s Tanah Tabu (Daughters of Papua) and Mochtar Lubis’ Maut dan Cinta (Love, Death, and Revolution). Stef is also a published fiction writer, a lecturer, and a theatre director. Currently, she’s doing her PhD at the University of Melbourne, researching Indonesian campus theatre and the experience of its youth audiences.

Angela Costi

Angela Costi is a poet and writer with a background in social justice, law and community arts. Since 1994, her creative gatherings, including plays, short fiction and essays, have been published, performed, awarded, broadcast and translated. The author of six poetry collections. Her recent chapbook is Adversarial Practice, published in Cordite Poetry Review, which was commended in the Wesley Michel Wright Prize 2024. She received the High Commendation for Contribution to Arts and Culture, Merri-bek Award 2021. Known as Αγγελικη Κωστη among the Cypriot Greek diaspora, she lives on unceded Wurundjeri land.

Simon West

Simon West is the author of five volumes of poetry, including The Ladder, which was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards. His most recent book, Prickly Moses - Poems, was published with Princeton University Press in 2023.