The PEN Ten Interview Series
The PEN Ten is on the pulse of literary culture to help you discover your next great read. In this interview series, we ask authors 10 questions about their latest work and art.
The PEN Ten with Marlon James
"Writers do have a collective purpose, and that’s to write. I think we writers have managed to convince ourselves that that's not enough. Why is that? Writing can actually… More
The PEN Ten with John Murillo
"It was after the Rodney King verdicts were announced in April of 1992. I remember feeling simultaneously pleased and disappointed with myself that my first response was to want… More
The PEN Ten with Jennifer Clement
"I’m always in search of how the divine and profane coexist and how the powerless find ways to exercise power." More
The PEN Ten with Hayan Charara
"When it comes to the censorship of Arab or Muslim lives, the 'unacceptable parts' are usually not of books or movies but of entire realities." More
The PEN Ten with Carol Edgarian
"I guess you could say that today our job is to work against the collective numbness. To act as the opposing force. Where there’s shadow, bring a lantern." More
The PEN Ten with Martín Espada
"As a poet with a background in law, I am obsessed by the philosophy, the poetics, and the practice of justice. I am obsessed by what Whitman calls, 'the… More
The PEN Ten with Janet Peery
I would caution us to refrain from spending too much time in articulating [writers'] collective purpose for fear of leaching the blood out of the “uncontrollable mystery on the… More
The PEN Ten with Sarah Weinman
"I’ve said often that crime fiction in particular is an excellent vehicle for social commentary, because so much of what happens in society has some tie, or root,… More
The PEN Ten with Lauret Savoy
"Perhaps some might not think of this as censorship, but how a society remembers can’t be separated from how it wants to be remembered or from what it wishes… More
The PEN Ten with Philip Metres
"I think we Americans have to flip the question and ask, in what ways are we ourselves in a condition of carceral submission, surveilled and made docile? How much… More
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
