Steve Wasserman—one of my all-time favorite panelists for his great anecdotes and brilliant, witty comments—moderated this discussion, which included Marie Arana (author, book review editor at the Washington Post), Alan Cheuse (author, critic for NPR), Eric Banks (editor of Bookforum), and Carlin Romano (book review editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer). In other words, a group of great reviewers and publications.

(Although I’m sure that someone in the blogosphere will mention how strange it is that no one from the NY Times was on this . . . In fact, to pour fuel on the fire, I want to point out that no one from the NY Times even attended the conference . . . )

This panel was a bit loose and strange, making...

This was the panel that I was on, which makes it sort of difficult to write about.

I do want to say that Michael Moore—the Chair of the PEN Translation Committee—did a fantastic job organizing and moderating this panel. He provided a lot of information about the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the recent attempt to block the publication of books from Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, and the PEN-instigated lawsuit to challenge this.

He also talked about the Tariq Ramadan situation. Ramadan was denied a visa to teach at Notre Dame, and as a result PEN and the ACLU have filed a lawsuit, arguing that
American citizens have a First Amendment right to hear his ideas.

Helene Atwan from Beacon Press...