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PEN America 9: Checkpoints
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PEN America 9: Checkpoints showcases new work by writers from all over the world examining the literal and metaphorical barriers that scar the globe—with fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama from China, Cuba, Germany, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, and the United States. Plus conversations with Ian McEwan, Jeffrey Eugenides, Aleksandar Hemon, and much more.
>> Order your copy today
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Soap and Ambergris
by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed
I live in a small, single-story house in Al-Atayef Quarter. My husband didn’t leave me anything, apart from a mud house that shakes when the thunder crashes and the rain pours. [More]
The Nurse and the Novelist
by Anya Ulinich
The entire book is set in two columns. The narrower one is in italics. It tells a story of a village woman who falls in love with a boy hiding in her cellar. The wider column is about a depressed young man. [More]
Reunion
by Xiaolu Guo
Men’s faces always appear old to me. Most of the ones who visit the karaoke parlor are ageing, with wives and children at home. They were born in the ’50s, dedicated the prime of their lives to the socialist cause. [More]
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Baghdad, Damascus, Atlanta
by Ahmed Ali
I was eighteen years old, in the final stage of high school. This meant I had to join the army, unless I got a letter authorized by the Minister of Education, which would allow me to put it off until graduation. But it wasn’t easy to get things done under Saddam. You had to bribe people—and the man I bribed was leading me on. [More]
A Little Explosion
by George Packer
Adnan: That is not the right translation for “capacity-building.”
Laith: Keep it simple, stupid. You think that imam with the big nose would understand what Bill Prescott was telling him?
Adnan: Next time Bill should bring me instead.
[More]
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