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End Efforts to Compel Risen to Identify Source(s)
Dear Attorney General Holder, As members and supporters of PEN American Center, an organization representing over 3,500 writers, we write to you today to ask that the Justice Department… More
The PEN Ten with Luanne Rice
"But in this case I was writing about people crossing the border, dying in the desert or living in fear, undocumented in Boyle Heights, and it was inspired by… More
Mother and Daughter
But then there are daughters who become mothers, confusing the story because as mothers they remain, by definition, also daughters. How do they know which they are? More
Reckoning with Torture: Time for Reflection and Action
The Senate Intelligence Committee report on the use of torture by the CIA in the years after 9/11, which has already drawn telling responses from congressional insiders, was finally… More
Students’ Conviction Serves to Further Punish Jailed Professor Ilham Tohti
Seven of Tohti’s students were sentenced to three-to-eight years in prison this morning on spurious charges of separatism, for which Tohti is also serving a life sentence. Students who… More
The Other America: Black Lives and the Police State
With the deaths of so many black Americans at the hands of both police officers and white vigilantes who have escaped punishment, we are coming to see that two… More
PEN DIY: Wesley Stace on How to Lead a Double Life
Armed with his guitar and a Bulleit on the rocks, the incomparable and prolific Wesley Stace (also known as John Wesley Harding) took the stage on December 1 for… More
Renewed Charges Against Pınar Selek Make a Mockery of Turkish Justice System
Trumped up charges against Selek, a Turkish sociologist and feminist, of involvement in the 1998 Istanbul Spice Bazaar explosion were renewed today at the 15th High Criminal Court in… More
Lamentations of a Coconut Tree
This short story from the 2014 Neustadt Prize-winner was published after years of civil war following independence from Portugal in 1975 and is a chronicle of Mozambique's rebirth. Becker… More
Everything Full of Weight: On Translating Mia Couto
"My great satisfaction in translating this collection is not simply to be able to propose a different way of looking at our own familiar world, but to be part… More