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The PEN Ten with Je Banach
Writing may be courageous, but reading and speaking about what we read are also courageous acts. The discourse we create when we talk about books is daring just as… More
Translator Deniz Zarakolu Among 45 Released in Istanbul KCK Trials
PEN is delighted by the news of the release pending trial of writer and translator Deniz Zarakolu after two-and-a-half years in pre-trial detention. More
Three Poems by Osama Alomar
Your eyes burn with the desire for expression / If you were the only creature who loved me / That would mean that I am a good human being… More
PEN Honors Ilham Tohti with PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award
PEN American Center announced today that it will confer the 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award upon imprisoned Uyghur economist and writer Ilham Tohti. PEN hopes that… More
#WithFlowers: Free Expression for China
Despite promises to improve its human rights record, the climate for freedom of expression in China has steadily declined. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former Independent Chinese PEN Center President… More
A Freedom to Write Retrospective: Nay Phone Latt
Each week leading up to the PEN Literary Gala and the conferrence of the 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on May 5, PEN will feature the story… More
The Silent Woman
I stuck the knifepoint into one of the spaces between my black-gloved fingers. Then into the space between the fingers next to it . . . Several men tensely… More
The Ravens
This is our patch. We have no other. This soil, observed by the sun and the ravens. This plot beneath a sky criss-crossed by jet planes. More
On the Precipice: Burmese Literature Post-Censorship
How does a country's literature recover after years of mass censorship? James Byrne, poet and founder of the poetry journal The Wolf, has followed the developments in Burma for… More
In Nigeria, the War on Books is Being Fought on Two Fronts
PEN Nigeria warns the UN about encroachments on free expression and digital freedom, as the militant Islam group Boko Haram continued its war against books and the federal finance… More