Interviews & Features
PEN America produces a breadth of interviews and features throughout the year.
The PEN Ten with Elif Batuman
"I think literature has a collective purpose, which is to process the reality of lived experience, in much the same way that dreams process the reality of waking life." More
The PEN Ten with Ram Devineni, Vikas K. Menon, and Dan Goldman
"Storytellers and artists serve as funhouse mirrors that show us versions of ourselves and the world, not as they are but as they could be. We point the way… More
The PEN Ten with Zoe Pilger
"It seems that total exposure is now a form of concealment, especially in regards to women’s sexuality. We can show everything and nothing at once." More
The PEN Ten with Ladan Osman
"So often we are stuck in contracted stories, or keeping others in manageable narratives. We look, but what are we looking for?" More
The PEN Ten with Mark Nowak
"Workers writing poems, as Jacques Rancière says in Proletarian Nights, is still a pretty radical idea." More
The PEN Ten with Mona Eltahawy
"I believe it's the writer's job to tell society what it pretends it doesn't know." More
Controlled Abandon: A Conversation with Gregory Pardlo
In the realm beyond conventional reason there can be found opportunities to transcend the categories that corrupt our social interactions. More
The PEN Ten with Eric Bogosian
"We are no longer living in an era of the printed word radiating outward from author toward readers. Words come in short bursts, ideas ping-pong, thinking itself has become… More
Q&A with Tolu Ogunlesi
Lagos is not a place where people come on holiday. I would love to have people come and see it for themselves after reading my pieces. More
The PEN Ten with Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
"Are they influences? My obsessions are numerous and varied and therefore lead me to my greatest obsession: to be still, to know silence within, to be so still that… More
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
