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New York Times: A Crowd That's Seldom at a Loss for Words
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The idea behind the festival, Mr. Rushdie said in an interview, was to bring attention to America's cultural insularity at a time when there has never been a greater need for the exchange of ideas. "It is uniquely important at this point for the U.S. and the rest of the world to be in a dialogue," he said. "It's been a dialogue of the deaf."  |
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The Globe & Mail: Still tilting at Quixote 400 years later
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Since the publication of the first volume of Don Quixote in 1605, the world has been enthralled by the tale of the aging country gentleman whose love of chivalric romance stories inspires him to travel the countryside righting wrongs -- even though his enemies and deeds proved delusional more often than not. Now, as Miguel de Cervantes's book witnesses its 400th anniversary, it is at last having a celebration worthy of its place in history.
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LA Times: Books vs. Goons
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A butterfly flaps its wings in India, and we feel the breeze on our cheeks here in New York. A throat is cleared somewhere in Africa and in California there's an answering cough. Everything that happens affects something else, so to answer "yes" to the question before us is not to make a large claim. Books come into the world, and the world is not what it was before those books came into it. The same can be said of babies or diseases. |
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The New York Times Book Review: The PEN and the Sword
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In 1986 it still felt natural for writers to claim to be, as Shelley said, ''the unacknowledged legislators of the world,'' to believe in the literary art as the proper counterweight to power, and to see literature as a lofty, transnational, transcultural force that could, in Bellow's great formulation, ''open the universe a little more.'' |
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The New York Press: An Interview with Salman Rushdie
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The real world is no longer describable inside terms of naturalistic fiction. It’s become too big, ugly, strange, distorted, weird. Every age in literary history needs to forge the tools with which to describe the reality outside the window. Right now, that reality is so bizarre that it’s not surprising writers have used bizzare means. |
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Arab News: Word and World in New York
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Literature is, in and by itself, a humanizing force that, by defining the syntax of our experience, deals with the image of man, with the shape and motive of his conduct. |
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AllAfrica.com: Deyda Hydara Honored by PEN
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In the case of the murder of Deyda Hydara, PEN has been calling for a full investigation leading to the conviction of all those behind this terrible crime, from the triggerman to the intellectual author. It has also been seeking a repeal of repressive media laws and greater protections for independent journalists in the Gambia. |
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