Blog
Filter By:
Advocacy • Analysis • Blog • Commentary • Drama • Essay • Event • Feature • Fiction • Graphic Narrative • Interview • Memoir • News • Obituary • Open Letter • Poetry • Press Release • Profile
Browse By Series:
PEN Poetry Series • Prison Writing • The PEN Ten Interviews • Illustrated PEN • Pen Pals • The PEN World
Browse By Email Subscription:
PEN America News • Educational Censorship News • Works of Justice
A “Campaign of Genocide” in Syria
This morning, Christopher Merrill of the International Writing Program in Iowa sent PEN a translation of a letter by Syrian novelist Khaled Khalifa imploring the world to help end… More
Opening Up to the Family of Nations: A Conversation with Tom Fleming
The reason I joined PEN is really quite simple. I had been censored. More
A “Campaign of Genocide”¥ in Syria
[caption id="attachment_8705" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Photo by syriana2011 via Flickr"][/caption] This morning, Christopher Merrill of the International Writing Program in Iowa sent PEN a translation of a letter by Syrian novelist… More
PEN Appeal: Maikel Nabil Sanad
February 9, 2012 Director of Military Judiciary Major-General Ahmed Abd Allah Military Judicial Department Cairo, Egypt Fax: +202 2 402 4468 / +202 2 411 3452 Military General Attorney Major-General Medhat Radwan Military Judicial Department Cairo, Egypt Fax:… More
I Can’t Be Responsible For All That’s Behind Me
That is the mind I am talking about. / That wind that fire that way of saying / something so unlike anything as familiar / as a hand, a… More
PEN Appeal: Li Tie
February 9, 2012 President of the People’s Republic of China His Excellency Hu Jintao State Council Beijing 100032 P.R. China Your Excellency, On behalf of the 3,500 members of PEN American Center, an international organization of… More
Leaps and Sounds
The leap-year February is extraordinary also in that it brings us LOADS of great new poetry—and a lot of it free and online! So let’s give it to the… More
Fatima Shaik: Translation, Semantics, and Race
In the 1950s, my father discovered a mountain of old journals on the back of a dump truck. He stored the journals in a closet because they were “very… More
Half-Hidden in a Shock of Story: A Conversation with Jan VanStavern
I look at my favorite poems that I’ve read or written and notice they are full of surprises at a deep language level and often about really violent transitions,… More
Tunisia, One Year Later: A Conversation with Sihem Bensedrine
Just for telling the policeman who arrested you that it was your right to protest, you would pay for it. You would be sent to prison. You would lose… More