The PEN Ten with Amitava Kumar
I fear it is fashionable for many writers to think that they have to be right. I want to be wrong but true. Our task is to be human. More
2014 PEN Poetry in Translation Award: Four Questions for the Winners
"For me, there’s something about that in-between genre—part diary, part poem, part letter to the world—that felt both fascinating and important." More
The PEN Ten with Peter von Ziegesar
Writing about my family in a memoir was about as daring as it gets ... I was sure that when the book came out I was going to be… More
2014 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize: An Interview with the Finalists
Dear James Baldwin, How do you think psychotherapy would have changed your writing? More
The PEN Ten with Sean Wilsey
Suddenly seeing myself as a writer-of-facts changed the way I looked at reality—so it was sort of a double-edged occasion. Guaranteed impediment to having a good time: knowing you'll… More
The PEN Ten with Jean Kwok
After hearing from readers who told me how the book touched and influenced them, I realized that what I say does have an impact. Of course, I need to… More
The PEN Ten with Warren Adler
My obsession is to get it right, plot, characters, atmosphere, logic. I never go to sleep without figuring out what I will write tomorrow. More
The PEN Ten with Harvey J. Kaye
My lifelong hero—ever since I was a boy—is Thomas Paine, the American Revolutionary and radical-democratic pamphleteer. I would love to be identified with his words, words such as “The… More
The PEN Ten with Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Fidel Castro as the measure of all things. Why is it that no Latin American writer, after almost a century of tradition with the so-called “novels of the dictator,”… More
Thai Freedom: We Can’t Breathe
He was speaking in code, of course, as many Thais do when discussing Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code that states: “Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King,… More