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Africa and the World: Writers at Home and Away
BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: If one mentions the word “Africa” in a global context, it tends to evoke many responses and perhaps even some obsessions. People tend to project on the… More
Inappropriate Appropriation
RICK MOODY: I think the pressing question of the PEN World Voices Festival is “Why, exactly, are we bothering?” The United States of America has become a culture that… More
Postcolonial Passages: Assia Djebar & Lyone Trouillot
"Postcolonial Passages," with Assia Djebar and Lyone Trouillot, appears in PEN America 7: World Voices. This talk was presented, in slightly different form, at the 2005 PEN World Voices… More
Continental Divides
I’ll begin by reading from my book Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna:During the middle of the night, I woke to this huge sound—like rain,… More
Elif Shafak: Crossover Artists: Writing in Another Language
I want to talk about how I made the journey from the Turkish to the English language. Before doing that, I would like to draw a historical framework—how literature… More
Reinventing Home
MICHAEL ONDAATJE: In Purple Hibiscus, on the acknowledgments page at the end, there’s a wonderful sense of community—I almost want you to read that because it feels like part… More
Power Struggles: Tsitsi Dangarembga & Achmat Dangor
I think one learns early where one’s place in life is meant to be and one has to decide whether to occupy that place or not. Luckily, my parents… More
Literature & Power: Writing about Politics, with John Ralston Saul, Oksana Zabuzhko, Shashi Tharoor, Tomás Eloy Martinez, Francine Prose, and Bernard-Henri Levy
When I first read the title of our panel, what immediately came to mind was an episode from the last day of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. Those of you… More
A History of Trauma
KHALED MATTAWA: What’s ringing in my ear now is the adverb “originally,” and I want to discuss with Hanan and Fadhil the issue of origins. My question for them… More
In Search of the Sensual: Hanan al-Shaykh & Salman Rushdie
One of the sad things about the modernist way is that there’s a disconnect with the old tradition. The same thing happened in India. There are old temples with… More
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