Dave King on Javier Marías’s Dark Back of Time
“I believe I’ve still never mistaken fiction for reality,” Marías begins—offering, perhaps, the first of many possible inventions and introducing a narrator who, in his astonishment at art’s irresistible… More
Pretty Girls
Abandoning her literature studies in Tirana to look after the aunt and uncle who had brought her up, Hana is forced by her uncle’s imminent death to take an… More
Antonio Muñoz Molina on Fortunata and Jacinta
Reader, reluctant reader, unknown reader, unlikely reader: I am aware there is little chance that you will crack open this book, let alone read this message, and so I… More
John Ralston Saul’s Opening Remarks at 77th PEN International Congress
The 77th PEN International Congress takes place this week in Belgrade, Serbia. Below are the opening remarks from PEN International President, John Ralston Saul. More
PEN Remembers Book Editor and PEN Member Jeannette Hopkins
PEN is saddened by the loss of influential book editor, social justice advocate, and PEN member Jeannette Hopkins, who died August 4 in New York from complications of a… More
Pasha Malla on The Secret of the Unicornand Red Rackham’s Treasure
That childhood experience of claiming cultural artifacts as my own wasn’t unique to Tintin, of course, but there is something about that crime-solving, fauxhawked man-child, his terrier sidekick, and… More
PEN Mourns Loss of Renowned Translator and PEN Member Joachim Neugroschel
PEN joins the international literary community in mourning the passing of prolific literary translator, essayist, art critic, poet, editor, and publisher Joachim Neugroschel, who died on May 23 in… More
Yiyun Li on Sketches from a Hunter’s Album
You walk into Turgenev’s stories as into a dream that you have often had: the darkened faces of peasant women behind the fire, the hooves of the horses stirring… More
Phillip Lopate on What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-1933
I can think of no book I’d rather exchange for the Gideon Bible than Joseph Roth’s What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920–1933. More
Jaime Manrique on Don Quixote
“Fame is a form of incomprehension, perhaps the worst,” wrote Jorge Luis Borges in “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” It should not be surprising, then, that the most… More
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