PEN International Literature
PEN American Center’s third annual World Voices Festival of International literature starts today and runs through sunday. I went and heard some talks last year and they were very interesting.
That optimistic spirit is the organizing principle of the festival, which brings together people from 45 countries to talk not only about problems directly affecting writers, but also about other issues, from global warming and the international refugee crisis to the war in Iraq and political torture.
It is that direct engagement with political topics that perhaps makes the festival — at least in the United States — stand out.
Founded three years ago in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and in the midst of the Iraq war, the festival was conceived as a way of addressing America’s cultural isolation. This year the theme is “Home & Away.” Writers of fiction and nonfiction will be speaking and reading at 66 events in 29 locations throughout the city.
The Festival highlights are here.
TOWN HALL READINGS: WRITING HOME’ Tomorrow at 8 p.m., Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street, Manhattan, with Don DeLillo, Kiran Desai, Nadine Gordimer, Salman Rushdie and others.
‘WHERE ON EARTH: THE REFUGEE EMERGENCY’ Thursday at 3 p.m., Lang Recital Hall, Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, at 68th Street, with Ishmael Beah and the novelists Abdulrazak Gurnah and Laila Lalami.
‘THE PEN CABARET’ Saturday at 8 p.m., Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, with Patti Smith, Sam Shepard and others.
‘THE ARTHUR MILLER FREEDOM TO WRITE LECTURE’ Sunday at 6:30 p.m., Cooper Union, Great Hall, Seventh Street at Third Avenue, East Village, with the Israeli novelist and journalist David Grossman, in conversation with Ms. Gordimer
That optimistic spirit is the organizing principle of the festival, which brings together people from 45 countries to talk not only about problems directly affecting writers, but also about other issues, from global warming and the international refugee crisis to the war in Iraq and political torture.
It is that direct engagement with political topics that perhaps makes the festival — at least in the United States — stand out.
Founded three years ago in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and in the midst of the Iraq war, the festival was conceived as a way of addressing America’s cultural isolation. This year the theme is “Home & Away.” Writers of fiction and nonfiction will be speaking and reading at 66 events in 29 locations throughout the city.
The Festival highlights are here.
TOWN HALL READINGS: WRITING HOME’ Tomorrow at 8 p.m., Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street, Manhattan, with Don DeLillo, Kiran Desai, Nadine Gordimer, Salman Rushdie and others.
‘WHERE ON EARTH: THE REFUGEE EMERGENCY’ Thursday at 3 p.m., Lang Recital Hall, Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, at 68th Street, with Ishmael Beah and the novelists Abdulrazak Gurnah and Laila Lalami.
‘THE PEN CABARET’ Saturday at 8 p.m., Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, with Patti Smith, Sam Shepard and others.
‘THE ARTHUR MILLER FREEDOM TO WRITE LECTURE’ Sunday at 6:30 p.m., Cooper Union, Great Hall, Seventh Street at Third Avenue, East Village, with the Israeli novelist and journalist David Grossman, in conversation with Ms. Gordimer
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