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PEN Welcomes Release of Algerian Newspaper Publisher, Mohammed Benchicou
PEN American Center welcomed today’s release of Mohammed Benchicou, a newspaper publisher whose paper’s independent reporting earned him a two-year prison term in Algeria. Benchicou, who received one of… More
Contraband
Our digital clocks are now contraband. But if your old digital clock has a radio in it, then it’s not contraband. The new replacement clocks the canteen now sells… More
Quixote at 400: Margaret Atwood
The small, buried, dead books have given rise to huge living books and as we watch, the covers of the books open and some of the characters of Don… More
The Way We Love Now: Meir Shalev
When we talk about love, it’s part of an international conspiracy: Writers know something about love that readers do not. The same way rabbis and priests and imams know… More
The Way We Love Now: Antoine Audouard
“The way we love now.” I mean, who is “we”? Emily Dickinson: “That love is all there is, is all we know of love.” Okay? That pretty well does… More
Confronting the Worst: Writing & Catastrophe
I’m not an expert on natural disaster, but on man-made disaster, namely wars. I assume that all of us have received the same question over and over again: “Why… More
Quixote at 400
But what is the symbolic connection between madness and modernity? Why should modern man end up recognizing himself in the words of a lunatic? More
Confronting the Worst: Writing & Catastrophe
Listen.I’d like to remember the great Chekhov and his play Three Sisters. The main character in that play says over and over, “Now life is terrible, we live in… More
Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora
The scrawny street vendor in Hanoi studies my eyes, my lips. “Brother,” he says, “yours is not a Vietnamese face. It’s a face that has not known suffering.” Then… More
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