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Prominent Artist and Critic Ai Weiwei Detained; Fears for Safety
Artist and prominent government critic Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing airport on April 3, 2011, and remains in detention. More
Your Republic Is Calling You
7:00 a.m.Speak UpHe opens his eyes. He feels heavy and his breath stinks. Slowly, his brain whirs into activity, and a word gradually reveals itself, like a stranger emerging… More
Silver Sparrow
My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist. He was already married ten years when he first clamped eyes on my mother. In 1968, she was working at the gift-wrap… More
Interview: Arch Tait
PEN: What are some of the challenges of taking a best-selling, well-known work from its native language and translating it for a foreign audience?It’s less a challenge than a… More
The New Jim Crow
Jarvious Cotton cannot vote. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, he has been denied the right to participate in our electoral democracy. Cotton’s family tree tells the story… More
The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am
I have always liked to finish things. Ear-muffs, winter, spring, summer, autumn. Epsilon’s working life. Get it over with. And this impatience had consequences when Epsilon gave me an… More
Last Journalist Released
The last remaining Cuban journalist in prison, Habana Press director Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet Hernández, has now been released. More
What the Dog Saw, And Other Adventures
The PitchmanRon Popeil and the Conquest of the American Kitchen1.The extraordinary story of the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ begins with Nathan Morris, the son of the shoemaker and… More
Dissident Writer Liu Xianbin Sentenced
Writer and activist Liu Xianbin was handed down a 10-year prison sentence on March 25, 2011, for "inciting subversion of state power" in connection with his publication of a… More
Last of the “Black Spring” Writers Released
PEN International is delighted to report the release from prison of independent journalist Pedro Argüelles Morán on March 4, 2011. More
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