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 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
The PEN Ten with Lauren Beukes
"I joke that some people go to see psychologists, but I get my issues out on the page and make it my readers’ problem." More
The PEN Ten with Chaya Babu
"I think the responsibility of the writer is to interrogate their reality and the reality of what they see and then write that. I do believe there is collective… More
The PEN Ten with Brandon Caro
"In order for the world to function, we have to accept a certain level of falseness. It’s the responsibility of the writer to expose that falseness." More
The PEN Ten with Moustafa Bayoumi
"A writer’s “revolutionary duty,” as Gabriel García Márquez once put it, is 'to write well.' The responsibility of a human being, on the other hand, is to practice compassion… More
The PEN Ten with Robin Coste Lewis
"I have a responsibility to history to get out of the way and try as best I can to document what I see, even if it is internal, because… More
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