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
|
|
|
|
 |
Jane Ciabattari: Scribe
Voice Triumphs
2nd PEN Cabaret. Saturday night, May 3, Webster Hall.
The disembodied voice of Hungarian singer Bea Palya filled the darkness at the venerable night club Webster Hall as she emerged from the back alongside the audience, singing raw, no microphone, no spotlight, in a chillingly eloquent v...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Vladmaster Vladimir's Viewmasters
>> Humor Saves
|
|
|
|
|
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]
|
|
|
|
|
Aaron Hamburger
You Can't Make Us Talk about Sex
At the panel, Writing Sex and Sexuality, four women writers from France, Greece, Holland, and Israel spoke somewhat unwillingly with one gay man from America about the role of sex in their work.
Why unwillingly?
Anja Sicking, from Holland, summarized the attitude of most of the writers on this...[More]
Other Posts:
>> In Short, Keep it Short
>> American Lit Seen from Abroad
|
|
|
|
|
|
Laban Carrick Hill
|
Context Is Everything
Seeing Salmon Rushdie alive and up on stage is a real testament not just to how much the writer’s imagined space, but also his or her entire personal world, intersects with the public or outside world. When Rushdie took the stage last night to launch the evenings readings at Town Hall, my firs...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Witness: See It Film It Change It
|
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
Anne Landsman
Everything's on the Table
There was nothing neutral about watching fellow white southern Africans – one who lives in the U.S. and one who lives in South Africa – talk about their powerful, groundbreaking memoirs (Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Scribbling the Cat and Rian ...[More]
Other Posts:
>> What to Expect
>> Listening to Another Tongue
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Molly McQuade
Conversation with McEwan and Pinke
One of the boons of any gathering is the unforeseen sidelong outbursts of other people's remarks. No one can predict these.
Waiting to cross Madison Avenue near the Morgan Library on Saturday, May 3rd, I hear a PEN Festival bystander say, with ...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Michael Kruger
>> Short Stories
|
|
|
|
|
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)
|
|
|
|
|
Martin Riker
Translation conversations
So, I decided to attend two programs on translation over two days—the PEN translation fund celebration and “Publishers Weekly: on translation”—and then find time to write a blog entry about them, thinking that perhaps there would be something interesting in the intersection.
The PEN Translation F...[More]
|
|
|
|
|
Antonio Romani
Fiction, Facts and Fans
Domenica 4 Maggio alle 6,30 in punto, presso la Cooper Union, Umberto Eco ha tenuto la Third Annual Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture a conclusione del Pen World Voices Festival of International Literature.
Eco ha iniziato con una battuta rivelando che saputo del titolo della Lecture, The Adva...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Roberto Saviano's style
>> omaggio a Michael Kruger
|
|
|
|
|
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]
|
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
Catherine Texier
No moral turpitude at Pen Cabaret
Cabaret is coming back. Not only the Pen Cabaret, the highlight of the Pen World Voices Festival, but cabaret is coming back all over town. Cabaret is not pretentious, cabaret is fun, cabaret is sophisticated, and the line-up at this year Pen Cabaret was impressive – half of them had won McArt...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Catherine Millet is not a libertine
>> Personal narrative and public....
|
|
|
|
|
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] |
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
|
