The PEN Ten with Alexander Chee

At some point recently I realized I mostly read about assassins. Assassins and sex work—in particular, I'm fascinated by the new porn narratives, the way porn has moved on… More

The PEN Ten with Karen Emmerich

The writer might have no responsibilities whatsoever, but the translator has only responsibilities—or at least that’s the popular perception. That’s why we’re always failing—according, again, to the popular perception.… More

The PEN Ten with Roxane Gay

Do writers have a collective purpose? I'm not sure, but what we do is write the world as we see it. We witness and record and remember and when… More

The PEN Ten with Shya Scanlon

Unfortunately, too little progress has been made, globally, since Solzhenitsyn smuggled his Nobel acceptance speech out of the Soviet Union as negatives in a tape deck in 1970. Even… More

The PEN Ten with Alissa Nutting

"I think writing should be a sacrifice, and feel like one—how else could the act of constructing narratives, stories, lies, deceptions, ever be kept honest, if not through demanding… More