The Power of Voice: On Translating Aurora Venturini
The balance of humor and horror in Venturini's The Cousins owes everything to the author's signature achievement: the voice of the narrator and main character. More
Read the Finalists of the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
Featuring some of the year's best essays by Ian Buruma, Leslie Jamison, David Bromwich, Angela Pelster, and Charles D'Ambrosio. More
The Self-Deceptions of Empire
David Bromwich is finalist for the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for the collection Moral Imagination, which explores the importance of imagination and sympathy in… More
Three Essays from Limber
Limber is a collection of essays which chart the world's history through its trees and a finalist for the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. More
The Empathy Exams
The title essay of Leslie Jamison's The Empathy Exams, a finalist for the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. More
A View from the United States: The PEN America Translation Committee
This is a fascinating time for literary translators into English, and a critical one. Where does the work of the PEN America Translation Committee fit into this changing landscape?… More
Syrian Refugee Writer Picks Up His Pen Again
He remembers the evening when he was able to pick up his pen. “Our men’s group had a good discussion that lasted four hours,” he recalled. “Afterwards, I felt… More
Je Suis José Carrasco
Seen from the vast perspective of a Latin America where the Honduran and Mexican and Guatemalan colleagues of Charlie Hebdo are dying right now, it is important to ask… More
Tower Crane as Metaphor
How many bodies would have to explode out of the ground for a sense of glee to overtake onlookers? More
Siamanto’s Bloody News
An entire generation of Western Armenian writers were extinguished by the Ottoman government just as they were [...] bringing Armenian literature into modernism and into an international light. More