Bruce Ducker on Anna Karenina
From the time I read the book at age 19 I had been in love with the heroine. Caught in a loveless marriage with Karenin, bored by her life… More
Meena Alexander on In the Dark of the Heart: Songs of Meera
How can you lose a book you love so much, one you are about to bring to a virtual book swap—just as soon as you touch it once more… More
Jessica Hagedorn on Kiss of the Spider Woman
The book swap will take place at an imaginary karaoke dive called Heaven, located in an abandoned, rotting mansion in the Malate section of Manila. More
Paul Kane on The Green Sea of Heaven
My designated book—though it’s too annotated and dog-eared to actually swap—is a translation by Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. of The Green Sea of Heaven, fifty ghazals by the Persian… More
PEN Mourns Loss of Renowned Lifestyles Editor and PEN Member Carol Southern
PEN is saddened by the loss of Carol Southern who passed away July 2 in New York, after complications arising from cancer surgery. Southern first became known for her… More
Salman Rushdie Remembers the 48th Congress of International PEN
The 48th Congress of International PEN, the global writers’ organization dedicated to spreading the word and defending its servants, was quite a show. More
Dostoevsky in the Ruins
I was watching a while ago a TV news program in which there was a view of Tehran after the air raid by Iraq, and the camera was panning,… More
A Reservoir of Freedom
We have come to the end of one of the most illustrious, unruly, and eventful congresses in the history of International PEN. Have so many brilliant writers ever gathered… More
Photocopies of Photocopies: On Bao Ninh
Bao Ninh, now living in Hanoi, became a novelist in the second half of his life. Until the age of forty, he served in the North Vietnamese Army, fighting… More
On Writing
A young student once wrote to the French novelist André Gide to ask him whether he should try to become a writer. “Only if you have to,” answered Gide,… More
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