The Way We Love Now: Peter Stamm
I wanted to talk about love in Switzerland, but the country is so small, there’s really not much to say. Only one detail: In Swiss-German “love” is not a… More
The Way We Love Now: Wayne Koestenbaum
This panel’s title pays oblique homage to the late Susan Sontag, whose 1986 short story “The Way We Live Now” itself honored Anthony Trollope’s 1875 novel, The Way We… More
Africa and the World: Writers at Home and Away
ACHMAT DANGOR: History. We all have our stories.Forty years ago, at the eager age of sixteen, I had to appear before a race-classification board in Pretoria, South Africa, because… More
Natsuo Kirino: International Noir
"International Noir: Breaking Out of Crime Time" appears in PEN America 7: World Voices. This talk was presented, in slightly different form, at the 2005 PEN World Voices Festival of… More
Quixote at 400
You may imagine the boss as the President, the General Secretary, the Chief of Army, the boss of your marriage or of your building, whatever you think. You immediately… More
Crossover Artists: Writing in Another Language
SHAN SA: I apologize, first of all, for my accent. It’s a really horrible, Chinese-French accent because I’m Chinese and I’m living in Paris now and I’m writing in… More
The Power of the Pen: Jonathan Franzen
JONATHAN FRANZEN: To the extent that the written word is a word of political utterance, it obviously can change something. Probably at least 50 percent of the time for… More
The Power of the Pen: Margaret Atwood
MARGARET ATWOOD: Does writing change anything? I took this question literally, and I’m reading two pieces. One is about our feeling as writers—probably not, we think sometimes. And the… More
Francois Bizot: Confronting the Worst: Writing and Catastrophe
In 1971, I was caught by a revolutionary communist in Cambodia. I was chained and condemned to death and before that, interrogated by a young man who asked me… More
Africa and the World: Writers at Home and Away
BREYTEN BREYTENBACH: If one mentions the word “Africa” in a global context, it tends to evoke many responses and perhaps even some obsessions. People tend to project on the… More
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