On August 4, fifteen literary luminaries gathered before a full house at New York City's Cooper Union to present a series of readings on the topics of free speech and democracy, in concert with the PEN Campaign for Core Freedoms. In addition to a crowd that stood for hours in a line that circled Cooper Union several times, the event reached a coast-to-coast audience through a simultaneous radio broadcast on Pacifica Radio's WBAI and a subsequent broadcast on C-SPAN's BookTV.  

The second in a new PEN series focusing on international literary explorations, this event paired Obie Award-winning playwright Eve Ensler with the Iranian writer Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran.  Novelist Peter Carey introduced the evening which also featured readings by Shohreh Aghdashloo, the first Iranian actress to be nominated for an Academy Award, and Swoosie Kurtz, the Tony Award-winning actress.  

PEN American Center, Centre Català del PEN Club, and the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU present a forum, Mind the Gap: Writers eye the U.S.-European cultural divide, with Tariq Ali, Ian Buruma, Jane Kramer, Bernard Henri Levy, Peter Schneider, and Carles Torner.

This event is made possible by The Kaplen Foundation; The Lila Wallace Theater Fund of the New York Community Trust; FJC, a Foundation of Donor-Advised Funds; Barcelona Forum 2004; The New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and PEN members.  

Featuring Ariel Dorfman, Martin Espada, John Felstiner, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Galway Kinnell, Gary Soto, Ilan Stavans, and others. Cosponsored by CUNY, PEN, FSG, The Mercantile Library, The Neruda Foundation, and Poets House

Tickets: $5, free to CUNY students.
For tickets and reservations call: (212) 817-8215  

When: Monday, May 19, 2003
Where: CUNY Graduate Center's Proshansky Auditorium, New York, NY

Presented in collaboration with The Graduate Center of the City University of New York's Center for Humanities. A panel discussion on the politics, spin, and history of White House memoirs. Featureing: Sidney Blumenthal, Monica Crowley, David Gergen, William E. Leuchtenburg, and moderated by Joe Klein.

Former vice president of PEN American Center, Grace Paley remains one of the most beloved contemporary Jewish writers, as well as one of the masters of American fiction, a writer whose works can stand beside those of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Philip Roth, and Saul Bellow. Since their first appearance in 1959, her stories have achieved a cult or classic, status, loved for their earthy folk wit and tough, street smart wisdom.  

The third event in the PEN Foreign Exchange series featuring international writers in conversation with American writers, this event paired novelist Francisco Goldman (author of The Divine Husband) with the Guatemalan writer Rodrigo Rey Rosa (author of The Good Cripple).   Actors Wallace Shawn and Sam Tsoutsouvas read selections from Rey Rosa's work.

Presented by PEN American Center and co-sponsored by Alfred A. Knopf and El Diario/La Prensa Featuring: Jon Lee Anderson, Paul Auster, Edwidge Danticat, Francisco Goldman, Edith Grossman, William Kennedy, José Manuel Prieto, Salman Rushdie, and Rose Styron. Curated by Esther Allen. Special video message from President Bill Clinton.  

PEN American Center, National Coalition Against Censorship, and American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression sponsored this reading to reflect on the freedoms to write and read seventy years after the Nazi book burnings. Frances FitzGerald, Margo Jefferson, Adelle Lutz, Rick Moody, Elizabeth Nunez, Grace Paley, and Francine Prose joined Master of Ceremonies Reno and the free-expression community in New York to mark the opening of Sheryl Oring's installation Writer's Block.  

When: Tuesday, September 16, 2003
What Time: 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Kimmel Student Center, Room 914, 60 Washington Square South, New York, NY

The Politics of Translation is a panel discussion presented by PEN and the Department of Comparative Literature at NYU Featuring Ammiel Alcalay, Esther Allen (moderator), Michael Henry Heim, Michael Hofmann, Susan Sontag, and Steve Wasserman  

An Evening of Readings and Reflection. Featuring: John Ashbery, Anne Carson, William Gass, Margo Jefferson, and Susan Sontag with assistance from Savitry Durkee. Curated by Wayne Koestenbaum and Catharine R. Stimpson.

This event was made possible by a generous grant from the Kaplen Foundation and FJC, a Foundation of Donor-Advised Funds. Funds are also provided by the Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund of the New York Community Trust; the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and PEN members.  

A tribute incorporating reflections, reminiscences, and dramatic readings. Featuring playwrights Edward Albee and Israel Horovitz; novelists Paul Auster and Peter Carey; critics Tom Bishop, Mel Gussow, Christopher Ricks and Richard Seaver; and actors Maria Aitken, Katherine Borowitz, Bill Irwin, Rosaleen Linehan, Marian Seldes, and John Turturro.