Christopher Merrill is an award-winning poet, essayist, journalist, translator, and cultural diplomat.
He serves as director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and has served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO.
Merrill has conducted cultural diplomacy missions in more than 30 countries for the U.S. State Department. In 2012 President Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities.
He has published six collections of poetry, including Brilliant Water, and Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets
Books of his nonfiction include The Tree of the Doves, Self-Portrait with Dogwood, and Things of the Hidden God.
His awards include a knighthood in arts and letters from the French government.