Excerpt of The Lion Dreaming
I invented Rome. The new Rome. The Rome where life is sweet, the place people imagine when they hear the name—that was my idea. It was just an idea,… More
Literature & Power: Writing about Politics, with John Ralston Saul, Oksana Zabuzhko, Shashi Tharoor, Tomás Eloy Martinez, Francine Prose, and Bernard-Henri Levy
I write for papers in this country and abroad. Earlier in Iraq war, I was living in Italy, and a newspaper in the United States in New York asked… More
Literature & Power: Writing about Politics, with John Ralston Saul, Oksana Zabuzhko, Shashi Tharoor, Tomás Eloy Martinez, Francine Prose, and Bernard-Henri Levy
Does the history of the last century offer much support for the view that the literary imagination has any special purchase on political wisdom? Can literature mitigate the pressures… More
History of My Face
My lips came with a caravan of slavesThat belonged to the Grand Sanussi.In Al-Jaghbub he freed them.They still live in the poor section of BenghaziNear the hospital where I… More
Literature & Power: Writing about Politics, with John Ralston Saul, Oksana Zabuzhko, Shashi Tharoor, Tomás Eloy Martinez, Francine Prose, and Bernard-Henri Levy
My greatest shock came not from critics proclaiming me a witch who deserved to be burned were it not for our civilized times, but from crowds of enthusiastic female… More
Literature & Power: Writing about Politics, with John Ralston Saul, Oksana Zabuzhko, Shashi Tharoor, Tomás Eloy Martinez, Francine Prose, and Bernard-Henri Levy
As an Indian novelist, I find that literature’s relationship to power is particularly complex in countries like mine. Most developing countries are also formerly colonized countries, and one of… More
Literature & Power: Writing about Politics, with John Ralston Saul, Oksana Zabuzhko, Shashi Tharoor, Tomás Eloy Martinez, Francine Prose, and Bernard-Henri Levy
Literature is particularly unstable. It is that which is unstable, uncertain, which we don’t know how to label. Literary criticism can classify certain texts, but what the work of… More
Non-Military Statements
Non-Military Statements1Yes, I did write in my letterthat I would wait for you forever.I didn't mean exactly "forever,"I just included it in the rhyme.2No, he was not among them.There… More
Freedom Fighter
As an international organization dedicated to the advancement of literature, PEN works to spread literacy in all communities, and to defend freedom of expression. For that reason it is… More
Larry Siems: Ken Saro-Wiwa: The High Price of Dissent
Larry Siems is a poet and director of the Freedom to Write and International Programs at PEN American Center.In the spring of 1995, Ken Wiwa stood in for his… More
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