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Literary Awards 2012: Excerpts from the Winning Authors
For more than 50 years, PEN American Center has honored some of the most outstanding voices in literature with its literary awards program. We're proud to present excerpts from… More
Web Director Murdered in Baja California
PEN International is shocked to learn that yet another journalist has been killed in Mexico. Tijuana Informativo Director Ramón Abel López Aguilar was kidnapped in Tijuana, Baja California on… More
Nathan Englander, Andrew Solomon Elected to PEN Board of Trustees
PEN American Center is pleased to announce today that its Board of Trustees voted on October 3, 2012, to appoint Nathan Englander and Andrew Solomon to its ranks. “They… More
On Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried has been challenged because of profanity three times. At high schools in Pennsylvania (retained), Mississippi (banned), and Illinois (retained); in 2001, 2003, and 2007, respectively;… More
On William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
While ideological book banning is infuriating, banning out of ignorance and vague religiosity are, to me, even more galling. William Faulkner’s classic, As I Lay Dying, has been banned… More
On Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five
Throughout the novel, Vonnegut punctuates each horror with the words, “And so it goes.” Nothing protects the Billy Pilgrims of the world from brutality. Innocence is no protection. More
Robie Harris On the Banning of Her Books
How can we hold back writing about powerful feelings, or not include certain information children crave and have the right to know, simply because we are afraid? More
On Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita
Say that Lolita is hilarious and excruciating and sad—no novel ever had a sadder last line—but not boring, surely. We throb with the miserable Humbert as he creeps across… More
Excerpts from Marcelo Cohen’s The End of the Same
There are men on the beach. They are prisoners. Right now they are establishing a routine in order to accommodate various states of rage, depression, and reverie. Most of… More
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