Interviews & Features
PEN America produces a breadth of interviews and features throughout the year.
The PEN Ten: Banned Books Edition with Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Discretion is acceptable. Sensitivity is important. But censorship has no place in our public life. More
The PEN Ten with Sorayya Khan
I’ve always believed that writing is a political act, a way to explore injustice, a place to contemplate complicity, forgiveness, and the possibility of a better world. More
PEN Uyghur Center: Powerful Literature in a Fleeting Language
As a Uyghur writer, I cannot truly understand or write any novel, story, or poem in Chinese. It isn’t possible because Chinese is not my language… More
“We Have Not Lived Through the Peak of Our Hardships”: An Interview with Andrey Kurkov
Nowadays, 80 percent of young authors write politically engaged literature, trying to touch upon very painful topics, the topics of refugees, immigrants, the topic of responsibility for the future... More
The PEN Ten with William Brewer
For me, at the atomic level, the obsession around which all my other obsessions orbit is seeing and making others see… More
The PEN Ten with Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa
The problem is the crown, doesn’t matter who's wearing it. Without the crown…"cultural theft and appropriation" is just humans engaging with the world around them—studying, learning, and collaborating. More
The PEN Ten with Matthew Zapruder
It’s better to bring such things we might be inclined to censor out into the light and let their ugliness be revealed and argued against. The alternative seems fraught… More
Swiss German PEN: Raising Awareness for Lesser-Known Cases
Our work doesn’t only deal with the more mainstream cases … There are many other names that should be mentioned. We try to spread awareness about those less spoken… More
The PEN Ten with Malka Older
Writers mirror their societies, reflecting back and interpreting what they see with enough distance and distortion for recognition and insights and evolution to occur. More
The PEN Ten with Dani Shapiro
Writers—by the very nature of what we do—are forced to slow down, and perhaps in so doing, we form a counterweight to the culture of instantaneous reaction. More