Norwegian PEN: Overcoming Free Expression Challenges Globally
I would say there is a tendency to write in an autobiographical manner. This is an old tradition, from a stream of bohemian literature in the 1890s. Proponents would… More
St. Petersburg PEN: “This City is Ours!”
The main challenge that St. Petersburg PEN faces is that the Russian authorities have currently set themselves the task of "provincializing Petersburg.". . . More
PEN Québec: A New Generation on a Familiar Quest for Literary Identity
There’s always a quest for identity. Whichever way you look at it, I feel that every writer in Québec is somehow drawn to this question. More
Incognegro
In the early 20th century White went undercover, posing as a white man in the deep south to investigate lynchings. More
PEN Estonia: Raising Popularity of Women’s Writing
The women writers are gaining ground. Books by women and girls are popular and writing is popular with women. We have many wonderful ones but let me introduce two… More
Three Strikes
I dropped from the skies or from heaven—whatever was closer at the moment—at the doors of the Kremlin library to research, and the clerk, an army major with a… More
The Transparency Project
She watched her heart beating again and again like an unanswered question, like a phone in her chest that would not stop ringing. More
from Alt Vices
When I feel a human-sized void, is it instinctual that I fill it with a human? More
The Quantum Theory of Suffering or Why I Look at the Moon
I only know this small piece of quantum theory: a thing does not exist until it is looked at or measured. That is, the moon does not exist until… More
Mother and Daughter
But then there are daughters who become mothers, confusing the story because as mothers they remain, by definition, also daughters. How do they know which they are? More
Alert Us
Are you an artist at risk or know someone who is?
PEN America On 
José Bello, a student, activist, and farmworker, has been held in Mesa Verde detention center in Bakersfield, California since May 14 after he recited a poem criticizing the immigration enforcement and detention practices of the United States.
https://t.co/6mxGD4DGAS
Jailed Uighur scholar and winner of the 2014 Freedom to Write Award Ilham Tohti has been serving a life sentence on separatism-related charges since 2014. His daughter continues to speak out and plead for her father's release: https://t.co/R5im1llEI0.
‘Police officers demanded to see my books’: @Elif_Safak on Turkey's war on free-speech: https://t.co/RzwaAY11aC via @guardian.