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The Power of the Pen: Jonathan Franzen
JONATHAN FRANZEN: To the extent that the written word is a word of political utterance, it obviously can change something. Probably at least 50 percent of the time for… More
Africa and the World: Writers at Home and Away
BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: If one mentions the word “Africa” in a global context, it tends to evoke many responses and perhaps even some obsessions. People tend to project on the… More
The Power of the Pen: Margaret Atwood
MARGARET ATWOOD: Does writing change anything? I took this question literally, and I’m reading two pieces. One is about our feeling as writers—probably not, we think sometimes. And the… More
Flattop for Cherry Hill
This is a story about the experiences I have had as a prison barber. I was incarcerated at the C.E. Egeler Correctional Facility in Jackson, Michigan 1995-1998.Cherry Hill is… More
How Should One Read a Book?
In the first place, I want to emphasize the note of interrogation at the end of my title. Even if I could answer the question for myself, the answer… More
The Most Insidious Censorship: A Conversation
K. ANTHONY APPIAH: As member’s of PEN’s Freedom-to-Write Committee, we’re heirs to a tradition of worrying mostly about the role of governments in restricting access to information, which is… More
Day of the Imprisoned Writer
In any given year, International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) monitors around 1,000 attacks against writers, journalists, poets, publishers and editors worldwide. These range from persistent harassment and… More
Yahoo Settles Civil Lawsuit with Families of Chinese Cyber-dissidents
PEN American Center today welcomed the news that Yahoo has settled a lawsuit brought by families of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, two Chinese cyber-dissidents who were jailed for… More
Love and Revolution
People sometimes talk about Neruda as two different poets: the poet of politics and revolution, and the poet of love or romance. He is actually both at the same… More
Barrio Sin Luz
¿Se va la poesía de las cosas o no la puede condensar mi vida? Ayer—mirando el último crepúsculo— yo era un manchón de musgo entre unas ruinas. More