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
Ahmed Ali: Baghdad, Damascus, Atlanta
I was eighteen years old, in the final stage of high school. This meant I had to join the army, unless I got a letter authorized by the Minister… More
Fatou Jaw Manneh Given Prison Sentence; Fined and Released
International PEN protests the four-year prison sentence for "sedition’" handed to freelance journalist Fatou Jaw Manneh on August 18, 2008 for writing articles critical of the president. Although Manneh… More
Anthropologist and Activist Murdered
International PEN is shocked by the murder of the anthropologist, author and indigenous rights activist Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila, who was apparently beaten to death in Guerrero, Southern Mexico,… More
Soap and Ambergris
I live in a small, single-story house in Al-Atayef Quarter. My husband didn’t leave me anything, apart from a mud house that shakes when the thunder crashes and the… More
Home Truths
When we talk about surveillance in other countries, repression in other countries, political problems in other countries, we need to keep in mind that we have some problems here… More
A Little Explosion
Adnan: How do you see yourself in five years? Intisar: On a bicycle. Adnan: Be serious. Intisar: I am very serious! Okay. In five years? (Smiling, indulging her dreams a little) Working… More
Fady Joudah: Proof of Kindness, Checkpoint
Fady Joudah was a finalist for the 2008 Poetry in Translation Award for The Butterfly’s Burden, a collection of three recent books by Mahmoud Darwish. Proof of KindnessTaxi driver drives… More
Mahmoud Darwish: They Didn’t Ask: What’s After Death, Nothing Pleases Me
What will we do before this death? Near/ our lives we live, and don’t live. As if our lives/ are desert lots disputed by the gods/ of real estate,… More
Wayward Surmises
Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests offerthe pleasure of compulsive organization(I’m writing five words perline): pleasure of dividing attentivenessinto constituent bits: sadistic pleasureof forcing others (viewers, subjects)to do your bidding: refusenikpleasure… More
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
