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Zhu Yufu Receives Tougher Sentence After Re-Trial
Nine months after trying and sentencing internet writer and activist Zhu Yufu to two years in prison for “obstructing the police from carrying out their public duty,” a Chinese… More
On Public Lives/Private Lives
Would you choose to bury the organs with the child? And he retreats to his room and closes the door. Here, birds in the zocalo whiz and tweet like children’s toys And… More
Public Lives/Private Lives
Surface Tension Scarified now but how? When we once heardparades from windows, swayed in artificiallyluminescent reeds under the Brooklyn Bridge,filled soaked corn husks with masa dough,glimpsed mouse-deer scamper on wish-thinlegs,… More
Billy Collins Reads Shi Tao’s “June” as Part of Free Expression Poem Relay
As the Olympic torch reached the U.S., PEN American Center today released a recording of former U.S. Poet Laureate and PEN American Center Vice President Billy Collins reading imprisoned… More
On Public Lives/Private Lives
Without a sound she sight-reads The song of the letter Sings each sentence on the breath Of the one who wrote it More
Public Lives/Private Lives
LaborMy handwriting is rough, a prisoner’s scriptedletter, the cropped fields and your winter handsfolding into my pockets for lack of gloves.I could go in any direction in this field… More
Clean Sheets
Prolific Dutch novelist and journalist Arnon Grunberg (Amsterdam, 1971) has done many things: win the same first-novel prize for a second time (pseudonymously as Marek van der Jagt), publish… More
Billy Collins Reads Shi TaoŸ??s Ÿ??JuneŸ? as Part of Free Expression Poem Relay
As the Olympic torch reached the U.S., PEN American Center today released a recording of former U.S. Poet Laureate and PEN American Center Vice President Billy Collins reading imprisoned… More
Hu Jia Sentenced to 3 1/2 Years for “Inciting Subversion”
Calling today’s sentencing hearing for dissident writer and human rights defender Hu Jia “a discouraging sign of China’s indifference both to the basic rights of its citizens and to… More
PEN Calls on U.S. to Review Exclusion, Admit Banned British Author
PEN American Center issued the following letter to appeal to the Departments of Homeland Security and State to review the exclusion of British author Sebastian Horsley from the United… More