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ISSUE 7: WORLD VOICES
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In 2005, the first annual PEN World Voices Festival brought together 125 writers
from around the globe for a week of intense conversation about
language, culture, crime, catastrophe, death, sex, religion—the facts
of life, political and personal, that goad those who make literature in
a time of turmoil. “Tyrants fear the truth of books because it’s a
truth that’s in hock to nobody,” PEN president Salman Rushdie
observed during one discussion. “It’s a single artist’s unfettered
vision of the world.” The mix and clash of individual visions at that
first gathering was such a heady success that we’re at it again, with
the 2006 World Voices Festival,
April 25–30. In the meantime, thanks to heroic efforts by this
journal’s volunteer transcribers, proofreaders, fact-checkers, and copy
editors, we bring you words from the 2005 festival. Here’s a preview.
Svetlana Alexievich:
“After Chernobyl, they buried milk, they buried meat, they buried
bread. . . . They sliced off the top layer of the soil, which had been
contaminated, and they buried it. They took ground and they buried it
in the ground. And everyone involved turned into a philosopher.” Francois Bizot: “I think we should maybe have the courage to identify ourselves with and humanize the torturer.” Carolin Emcke:
“Victims of violence . . . lose their ability to give an account, to
give a narrative of what happened to them, because they lose trust that
anybody will care.” Philip Gourevitch:
“There are three words that probably most motivate my reporting on the
aftermath of political violence: unimaginable, unspeakable, and
unthinkable. . . . They are the words by which the press gives you
permission to forget and ignore.” Francine Prose:
“I’ve been reading books about Hitler, books about Stalin. . . . I’ve
been reading them the way a hypochondriac reads health newsletters,
looking for the warning signs.”
Lyonel Trouillot:
“I reflect violence in my work because one writes with one’s gaze. But
it would be a mistake for a New York or a Parisian reader to view this
violence as a new exoticism. Violence is one aspect of the reality of
my country—a country where one lives, one makes love, one drinks, one
sings.” Elif Shafak:
“In the Middle East, sexuality is also about delight, pleasure, and
yes, sexual perversion and the delight you derive from that.” Hanif Kureishi:
“Our religions—not only Islam, but also, obviously, Christianity—think
and talk about sexuality all the time. Watching this chap Ratzinger and
one of his cardinals on the TV, I heard a word . . . which made my
blood go cold: the ‘re-evangelization’ of Europe.” Shashi Tharoor:
“My novels speak to an India of multiple realities, and of multiple
interpretations of reality. . . . If we had to do an Indian version of
E pluribus unum, it would be E pluribus pluribum.” Michael Ondaatje:
“You can have a real person in the real world who is simply too
unbelievable for fiction. . . . A woman working in human rights told me
she was driving in Colombo, and the American ambassador’s car came by
with the flag, and in the backseat was a clown.” Zakes Mda: “This is a love story, you know, the eternal triangle: man, woman, whale.”
—M Mark, Editor |
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>> View the full Table of Contents |
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MASTHEAD
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Who's who behind PEN America 7 |
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This exciting new issue features new work from Margaret Atwood, Shan Sa, Khaled Mattawa, Dunya Mikhail, and much more!
