A Slim Anthology that Encompasses Worlds: PEN America Debut Short Stories 2017
Hours later and several stories in, it became a process of cheating myself: “The next story is only six pages.” “It’s only 2am.” “The next one will only take…” More
Where is Liu Xia?
Liu Xia was never accused of a crime. She was punished to punish her husband and as a lesson to a nation. Now no one knows where she is.… More
Why Not Nat Turner? Kyle Baker on Drawing Our Erased History
Millions of taxpayer dollars have been allotted to immortalizing the glory of those who fought to preserve slavery, yet few are willing to speak out for a man who… More
How to Eat a Forest: In Two Acts
At times land was sold by the agent/ broker to a relatively poor immigrant, and subsequently offered by the politically connected seller to a prominent national government official. This… More
A Poet’s Return: Pavel Šrut’s Worm-Eaten Light
"For 10 years after Worm-Eaten Light was banned, Pavel couldn’t write poetry even if he’d wanted to because it had lost its meaning in new reality of normalization. Through… More
Silenced Without Proof: On Soft Censorship
"Since I can’t be the only cultural producer to fail to name the mechanism of their own silencing in the moment, this sets up an interesting possibility: that the… More
Outsider Nonfiction
"I did not set out to write a definitive transgender book. I wrote and photographed six individuals, ages 16 to 22, who fall under the transgender umbrella. This left… More
The Color Purple and the Toppling of American Gods
"In The Color Purple lies the truth, in its pages lie glorious, flammable ideas: how many fires could be lit with the simple, indomitable truth that a Black girl… More
On Translating Miljenko Jergović
Russell Scott Valentino is the recipient of a 2016 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for his translation of Rod by Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Croatian writer Miljenko Jergović. Read an excerpt of the translation… More
Magic and History: On Translating René Despestre
Written while the author was in exile and inspired by childhood memories of the village where he grew up, this classic of the Haitian literary tradition enchants the reader… More
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