Gini Alhadeff
An Empty Chair for American Writers
Could we propose, in honor of Pen and this year’s World Voices Festival, an empty chair on CNN and other TV news programs to symbolize the absent voices of American writers when it comes to commenting on politics?
The important question to have emerged Friday night at the 92nd Street Y, after s...[More]
Other Posts:
>> A Charming Utterly Spherical Zero
>> Jane & Napoleon
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Jane Ciabattari: Scribe
Is Sorokin the Russian Bolano?
Although his arrival was delayed by visa problems, Vladimir Sorokin, with his leonine mane of silver hair, was much in evidence at the PEN World Voices Festival.
A daring samizdat postmodernist in the waning Soviet days, Sorokin was known for stories that threw grenades at the long forced marc...[More]
Other Posts:
>> From Russians, with Love
>> Written on Water
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Richard Grayson
Small World, Big Changes
Small World, Big Changes: A Program for High School Students began a bit later than its scheduled 10 a.m. start time due to problems in the subway system which caused various participants and audience members to be delayed. (I was grateful for this, since I’d never experienced a half...[More]
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Aaron Hamburger
David Foster Wallace
Of the seven deadly sins, envy is probably the most common to writers. It's a condition that becomes particularly acute when one of us (usually young and cute) is anointed as the Next Big Thing in American Letters. Some recent examples: Jonathan Safran Foer, Curtis Sittenfeld, Marissa Pessl, Nell Fr...[More]
Other Posts:
>> You Can't Make Us Talk about Sex
>> In Short, Keep it Short
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Laban Carrick Hill
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Filipino Poet Victor N.Sugbo
Filipino Poet Victor N. Sugbo
I first met the Filipino poet Victor N. Sugbo in Tacloban, Philippines last September just as a typhoon was heading our way. We spent a wonderful afternoon in a Tacloban literary café talking poetry and sharing our work. Sugbo is one of the Philippines...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Groundnut Soup: Samuela's Fufu
>> Senegalese Writer Karima Grant
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Marlon James
Do You Believe?
Daydream Unbelievers:
Put four people in a room to talk about God (or lack thereof) and sparks are bound to fly. Throw in an audience of New Yorkers who sometimes think they’re panelists themselves and you end up with a call and response which resembles, oddly enough, church. Saturday&rsquo...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Bad Boys, Bad Boys
>> American Lit Seen From Abroad
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Tayari Jones
Pen Cabaret
click images to enlarge
By the time I made it to the Pen Cabaret, I was beat-down tired. It was cold and raining and I was sort of hungry. But being a good little PEN Soldier, I scrambled over the Webster Hall. I bought a drink. It cost $24.
Bill T. Jones opened the night with an interp...[More]
Other Posts:
>> View-Masters of The Universe
>> Fiction From Fact
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Anne Landsman
The Third Bird
The Scholastic Auditorium was packed for the event “Leaps and Bounds, Fits and Starts: The Evolution of a Children’s Book Writer” featuring panelists Neil Gaiman, Mariken Jongman, Shaun Tan, with Andrea Davis Pinkney as the participating moderator. Un...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Passion for the Page
>> Everything's on the Table
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Molly McQuade
Bloomerang
"Let's get to the business at hand. I'm old, and I may collapse at any minute!" So says the critic Harold Bloom, settling into his chair with a portmanteau majesty. The very last event of the 2011 PEN World Voices Festival begins. I feel as if I've gotten lost...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Ifs
>> Schneider, Toussaint, Monzo, Harris
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Claudio Ivan Remeseira
Umberto Eco at Cooper Union
Listening to Umberto Eco give his Arthur Miller Lecture in front of a packed and fascinated auditorium at Cooper Union last Sunday night, one can easily understand the reason of his world-wide appeal. Eco is the Pavarotti of the Academy, a scholar who is able to deliver with ease the highest notes o...[More]
Other Posts:
>> CÉSAR VALLEJO, cont.
>> NEW YORK, HISPANIC-AMERICA (III)
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Martin Riker
Newness and “New European Fiction"
Bear in mind that I’m writing about an event I helped organize for a book I published, and I’m not claiming to be objective about either.
But I want to write about Saturday afternoon’s event for New European Fiction because it brought together the two “international liter...[More]
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Antonio Romani
Leopardi
GIACOMO LEOPARDI’S CANTI: A Conversation with Jonathan Galassi
Questo incontro ha proposto al pubblico un Jonathan Galassi leopardiano.
Sincero fino all’autolesionismo quando dice di aver cominciato questo lavoro su Leopardi 10 anni fa, perchè dopo Montale non aveva trovato nessun poeta italian...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Il piacere dell’immaginazione
>> ...la notte e senza vento
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Ravi Shankar
The Secret Lives of Cities Revealed
The Secret Lives of Cities
Thursday, May 1st, 4:00 - 5:30 pm
Instituto Cervantes New York
Juan de Recacoechea, Yousef Al-Mohaimeed, Francisco Goldman & Joshua Furst. Moderated by Matt Weiland
Riyadh. Minneapolis. La Paz. Guatamala City. As Paris Review editor and panel moderated Matt Wie...[More]
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Leora Skolkin-Smith
"In Treatment"
I had told my husband last night I couldn’t write about the interview called “In Treatment”. I attended this interview between Israeli writer, Yael Hedaya, and writer, Arnon Grunberg, at the Mercantile Library on Friday afternoon. Many reasons went into why I couldn’t w...[More]
Other Posts:
>> A Conversation with A.B. Yeshoshua
>> PEN World Voices/Literary Films
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Catherine Texier
Revolution in the Library
The PEN banned books trailer popping on the screen of the Standard High Line Room on Wednesday night was particularly appropriate to the theme of How to Start a Revolution in the Libra...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Literature at Le Poisson Rouge
>> Listening in other languages
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George Wallace
BIG: On Catalan Writing And National Identity
In his apt introductory comments for the presentation “DISCOVER NEW CATALAN FICTION,” author Collum McCann likened the Catalans’ to his own Ireland. “Writing makes lives visible, and great writing make lives valuable,” said McCann. . . .[More] |
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Joshua Wolf Shenck
Three Lines from PEN @ Town Hall
“PLEASE turn your god damned phones off.”
- Salman Rushdie, introducing the big event
“You are given a trade not a gift. There need not be intensity or darkness in the service of it”
- the...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Notes on Witness
>> Notes on Crisis Darfur
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Michele Zackheim
Schlink & Aciman
Bernhard Schlink and André Aciman met at the New York Public Library while Cullman Fellows. They had adjacent work areas, but as Schlink said, “Sitting in our cubicles, we didn’t talk to each other.” When they finally did, they didn’t talk about their books...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Precious Moonstones
>> Fidgety Afternoon
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