Rosario Ferré: Reaching the Center

"Reaching the Center" was featured in PEN America 1: Classics, and was presented at a centenary celebration of Jorge Luis Borges, sponsored by the PEN Forums Committee and the New… More

1,001 Laughs

1,001 LaughsBack in the thirties, Borges worked for an Argentinean womens’ magazine called El Hogar—a magazine of middle-class attitudes and presumptions, roughly similar to Redbook in America today. I… More

Bodies of Knowledge

The Waves is Virginia Woolf’s most difficult book. It is a difficult book by any standards, and its difficulty and its greatness are intertwined. Part of the difficulty is… More

Poetrical Muralism

Growing up in the aftermath of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 70s, my generation and I were the beneficiaries of an abundance of free Chicano health clinics,… More

Arrests in America (Fuzzy Math)

Arrest by race, 2000 in AmericaTotal Arrests: 9,068,977Total Violent Crime Arrests: 414,420In the all arrest category:Whites were arrested in 6,324,006 cases, at 69.7%Blacks were arrested in 2,528,368 cases, at… More

The Faith and Character Program

8-19-04 After nearly a month in hopeful anticipation, “The Faith and Character Program/Dorm” adventure has officially begun!  The first meeting with Phase I, Group A with Counselor M. was for… More

Keep Out

There is an American tradition of responding to threats by confusing thoughts with acts and temporarily forgetting what Jefferson set down, in 1779, as one of the country’s founding… More

National Press Club Remarks

Listen to this event (1:18:16)PEN American Center is delighted to be sponsoring this event with the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, and the Association of American Publishers.… More

Burning From the Inside Out

Irish IndependentThere is a moment from the day after the World Trade Centre bombings that I still recall, though I have never written it down, nor told it to… More