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
November 27, 2006 | Save Whomever We Can
The New RepublicA few days ago, the brother of my friend Osman was one of seven Sunni workers in a shop in a mixed neighborhood of western Baghdad who… 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
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