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Home > > Press

PRESS ARCHIVE: BY DATE

A collection of news articles about or relevant to PEN’s work and campaigns.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 & earlier

2010
March 5, 2010 | Shanghaiist | Liao Yiwu stopped from attending German literary festival
On Monday, outspoken Chinese poet Liao Yiwu had barely boarded his flight from Chengdu to Cologne when he was ordered to get off. >> More
March 4, 2010 | Main Justice | The Torture Memos: A Drama
Three Democratic House members at an event Wednesday evening read selections from the so-called “torture memos” and accounts by some of the prisoners and witnesses who alleged that torture took place in the Guantanamo Bay prison. >> More
March 2, 2010 | New York Times | For 13th Time, Critic of China’s Government Is Barred From Leaving
BEIJING — Chinese security agents in Sichuan Province detained Liao Yiwu, a prominent author and critic of the government, as he prepared to fly Monday to a literary festival in Germany, human rights activists said. >> More
February 11, 2010 | VOA News | Chinese Court Rejects Dissident's Appeal of 11-Year Sentence
A Chinese appeals court has upheld an 11-year prison sentence for prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo (shahw-boh), who has convicted of subversion. >> More
February 11, 2010 | Publishers Weekly | PEN Panel Tracks Authors Who 'Made It'
In any discussion on how to be a children’s book author, questions naturally focus on the beginning of the journey—how to get started, how to get an agent, how to get published. Rarer is a focus on what it takes to be successful after that first book. >> More
February 11, 2010 | CNN | Chinese court upholds sentence for prominent dissident
Beijing, China (CNN) -- A Chinese court upheld an 11-year prison term for a prominent dissident sentenced for subversion late last year, a court official said Thursday. >> More
February 2, 2010 | New York Times | Chinese, Russian Activists Nominated for Nobel
Candidates for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize include a Russian human rights group, a Chinese dissident and an inanimate object: the Internet, people who made the nominations said Tuesday. >> More
February 2, 2010 | Reuters India | China warns against Nobel prize for leading dissident
China's Foreign Ministry warned on Tuesday against giving a Nobel Peace Prize to leading jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, a nomination made by the U.S. chapter of rights group International Pen. >> More
January 18, 2010 | Free Word | SRI LANKA: Journalist J. S. Tissainayagam Freed
International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee welcomes the release on bail of Tamil journalist Jayaprakash Sittampalam (J. S.) Tissainayagam, who was detained in March 2008 and sentenced to twenty years in prison for his critical writings. >> More
January 17, 2010 | The Guardian | Why is China so Terrified of Dissent?
There is an expression in China: "Kill the chicken before the monkey." Target the weak and vulnerable, it means, to frighten the strong and many. >> More
January 15, 2010 | Telegraph | Microsoft pledges to stay in China despite Google's threat to leave
Microsoft has no plans to pull out of China, its chief executive Steven Ballmer has confirmed, dashing hopes that the software giant would support its rival Google in its stand against Chinese censorship of the internet. >> More
January 15, 2010 | Financial Times | Dissident Detained in Southern China
HONG KONG, Jan 15 - Chinese dissident Zhao Shiying has been detained by police in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, a possible sign that a crackdown against signatories of Charter 08 is continuing, say activists and rights groups.>> More
January 15, 2010 | RNW | Dissident Detained by Police in Southern China
Chinese dissident Zhao Shiying has been detained by police in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, a possible sign that a crackdown against signatories of Charter 08 is continuing, say activists and rights groups. >> More
January 15, 2010 | NPR.org | Wife: Police Hold Leader of Chinese Writers' Group
Chinese authorities have detained the leader of an outspoken Chinese writers' group since Monday without giving any explanation, his wife said Friday.>> More
January 15, 2010 | IFEX | Writer and PEN Officer Zhao Shiying Detained
(PEN American Center/IFEX) - New York City, January 14, 2010 - PEN American Center today condemned the detention of Zhao Shiying, Secretary General of the Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC), who was taken from his home and had his personal computers seized on Monday evening. >> More
January 13, 2010 | Spero News | Hong Kong, Songs and Vigils for Liu Xiaobo
Hong Kong - The parliament of Hong Kong (LegCo) has this morning rejected a motion to "Free Liu Xiaobo”. The motion was presented by the Catholic Parliamentary Fred Li Wah-ming, a member of the Democratic Party and supported by other pro-democratic legislators.>> More
January 05, 2010 | WNYC | Writers Rally to Protest Imprisonment of Chinese Dissident
Writers from the PEN American Center, an advocacy group that works to defend free expression around the world, staged a New Year’s Eve rally this morning on the steps of the New York Public Library. >> More
January 04, 2010 | The Daily Beast | Writers Rally for Liu Xiaobo
On New Year’s Eve, Don DeLillo, Edward Albee, A.M. Homes, and others gathered to demand the release of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo, sentenced to 11 years in prison. >> More
January 04, 2010 | Guardian | Leading Authors Demonstrate Against Jailing of Liu Xiaobo
Acclaimed US authors including EL Doctorow, Don DeLillo and Edward Albee gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library on New Year's Eve to protest against the imprisonment of Chinese writer and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo. >> More
January 03, 2010 | CNN | Calls to Free Dissident
CNN's Anjali Rao talks with Kwame Appiah of the Pen American Center about the jailing of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. (Video) >> More
2009
December 31, 2009 | Bloomberg | Doctorow, Albee Protest 11-Year Sentence for Chinese Writer Liu
Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Edward Albee, E.L. Doctorow and other prominent writers demanded the release of jailed Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo at a rally today in front of New York’s main public library. >> More
December 31, 2009 | CBS News | Writers Rally for Jailed Chinese Dissident
Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Edward Albee and A.M. Holmes were among the writers who gathered Thursday to call on China to release writer and activist Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power" in his writings. >> More
December 26, 2009 | Wall Street Journal | Chinese Activist Liu Gets 11 Years
BEIJING -- A Chinese court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, China's most prominent dissident, to 11 years in prison for criticizing the government, an unusually long sentence that rights activists say suggests other activists will also face harsh punishment. >> More
December 25, 2009 | MediaBistro | Chinese Author Liu Xiabo Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison
Following a trial that lasted less than three hours, a Beijing court has sentenced Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo to 11-years in prison and and "two years' deprivation of political rights" for subversion in his writings. >> More
December 22, 2009 | CNN | Chinese Dissident Faces Trial Despite Calls for His Release
Beijing, China (CNN) -- Prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was arrested in 1989 for his role in the Tiananmen Square protest, faces trial Wednesday for allegedly "inciting subversion" in a more recent case. >> More
December 18, 2009 | New York Times | Words On Trial
In the late spring of 1989, a few weeks before the killings of June 4, a slight, almost nerdish figure appeared in Tiananmen Square and began exhorting the students to concentrate on democracy rather than the deposition of China’s top leaders and an end to corruption. >> More
December 09, 2009 | New York Times | A Great Chinese Writer, Behind Bars for One Year
One of the most courageous and visionary of modern Chinese writers is Liu Xiaobo, 53. He’s a strong supporter of democracy and something of a firebrand, as well as an awesome thinker and writer, and so he has been a frequent visitor to Chinese jail cells. >> More
November 19, 2009 | FictionThatMatters.org | An Interview with Larry Siems...
The conversation we’re having at PEN these days is, ‘what is the role of literature at a time that we’re in right now’, like any number of nations that have come through a time where the government has committed human rights abuses. What does literature do at that moment? –Larry Siems >> More
November 15, 2009 | The Daily Beast | PEN Alert: Free Liu Xiabo
PEN American Center has written a letter to President Obama asking him to help pressure the Chinese authorities to release a Tiananmen dissident, writer, and activist. Read more about the case. >> More
November 5. 2009 | NY Sun | Benefit Preview: A PEN America Program Teaches Writing to Prisoners
At WNYC’s Greene Space this coming Monday night, the PEN America Center has organized a showcase of work written by participants in the PEN Prison Writing Program. The event, titled “Breakout: Voices from the Inside,” is a benefit with ticket prices starting at $50, to support a low-profile PEN project that certainly deserves a much higher profile. >> More
October 29, 2009 | Committee to Protect Journalists | Natalya Estemirova case must be solved...
Your Excellency, On the day PEN American Center and the Committee to Protect Journalists join together for a public tribute to slain independent journalist and human rights defender Natalya Estemirova, we call on you to ensure that both her assassins and those who sent them to her doorstep are brought to justice. >> More
October 27, 2009 | Wall Street Journal | A Literary Night Out: Spelling Bee Humiliation...
Last night, the PEN American Center held a party to celebrate the latest issue (#11) of the PEN America journal, a bouillabaisse of fiction, poetry, essays and conversations among writers and thinkers that’s been publishing for nearly a decade. The event, held at (Le) Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village, drew a sizable crowd of literary types (horn-rims and sweaters in abundance). >> More
October 23, 2009| Human Rights Watch| Bearing Witness in Chechnya: The Legacy of Natalia Estemirova
PEN American Center - one of the world's oldest literary and human rights organizations - joins forces with the Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), CUNY's School of Journalism, and WITNESS to pay tribute to Natalia Estemirova, the award-winning human rights activist and journalist murdered on July 15, 2009, while she was working on extremely sensitive cases of human rights abuses in Chechnya. >> More
October 16, 2009 | Bombsite | RECKONING WITH TORTURE: MEMOS AND TESTIMONIES FROM THE “WAR ON TERROR”
Eight years ago, September 11th transformed New York City into a crowded hive of anxiety. Since then, there have been innumerable changes in our lives. The obvious ones include soldiers patrolling streets, bridges, tunnels, transportation hubs, and the now commonplace presence of folding tables and police officers prepared to check bags at subway stations. But there was much more going on than we knew...>> More
October 15, 2009 | New York Review of Books | Reading American Torture
On October 13, a sold-out crowd at New York’s Cooper Union listened for an hour and a half to readings by such prominent writers as Art Spiegelman, Don DeLillo, Susanna Moore, Eve Ensler, A.M. Holmes, George Saunders, and Paul Auster. Convened by PEN American Center and the ACLU, these writers came together to read not their own work, but the words of... >> More
October 2, 2009 | The Huffington Post | Writer Liu Xiaobo Release from China Demanded By Congress
New York City, October 2, 2009--Calling yesterday's near-unanimous vote approving a Congressional resolution demanding the immediate release of critic and writer Liu Xiaobo "a critical show of solidarity from the U.S. government at a critical time," PEN American Center urged the Obama administration to press for the prominent dissident's release in advance of the president's visit to Beijing on November. >> More
October 2, 2009 | Publishers Weekly | PEN Protests German Publisher’s Exclusion from U.S.
PEN American Center yesterday issued a letter to Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, urging them to review the decision to revoke the visa of German publisher and PEN member Karl-Dietrich Wolff, who was denied entry to the U.S. on September 25. PEN said not allowing Wolff into the country “sends the wrong message about our country’s commitment to the First Amendment.” >> More
October 1, 2009 | The Christian Science Monitor | On its 60th anniversary, China is still...
Washington - The People's Republic of China celebrated its 60th anniversary today with massive military parades, fireworks, and concerts throughout the country. In mid-November, President Obama will make his first presidential visit to Beijing, marking the 30th anniversary of Chinese-US relations with an agenda likely to include the environment, security, and the global economy. >> More
September 15, 2009 | Poets & Writers | PEN American Wins Amazon Grant
PEN American Center, the U.S. branch of the international literary and human rights group, announced yesterday that it has been awarded a twenty-five-thousand-dollar grant by Amazon. The money will support PEN’s Freedom to Write Program, which advocates on behalf of imprisoned or persecuted writers worldwide, as well as its Campaign for Core Freedoms, which opposes censorship in the United States. >> More
September 14, 2009 | MediaBistro | Amazon Awards PEN American Center $25K
Today Amazon.com, Inc. ((AMZN) awarded the PEN American Center a $25,000 grant to continue their work. The center will use the money to increase new media capabilities, and more video and audio content to the site. Some of the money will go back to the PEN Translation Fund, fighting the "dismayingly low number of literary translations" in the United States. >> More
September 11, 2009 | The New York Times | Pen Makes Appeal to Yale Press
PEN American Center has joined the controversy over a decision by Yale University Press to excise images of Muhammad from one of its new books and urged Yale to reconsider. PEN, the literary and human rights organization, sent a letter to Yale’s president and board calling the decision “out of character with Yale, its reputation and its leadership position.” >> More
September 7, 2009 | The New York Times | Footnotes
The PEN American Center has announced the winners of the 2009 Beyond Margins Award, which honors outstanding books by minority writers. >> More
September 4, 2009 | ESPN | This Sporting Life: Fish and bicycles
From the tottering Jenga tower of my thoughts, a few notions this week on tennis and on women and on men, on the blonde promise of smooth youth, on Afghanistan and revelation, on what gets dragged up in the Net and the persistent mystery of human cruelty, on time zones and end zones and the West Coast bias of a vampire TV schedule. >> More
September 3, 2009 | MediaBistro | 2009 PEN Beyond Margins Award Winners Announced
Today the PEN American Center announced the winners of the 2009 PEN Beyond Margins Award. Honored for writing "outstanding books by writers of color," three authors will receive $1,000 and be featured at a December celebration. >> More
August 3, 2009 | The New York Times | Pen American Center Names New Director
The PEN American Center, the American branch of the international literary and human rights organization, has announced the appointment of Steven Isenberg, a lawyer and professor of literature, as its new executive director. >> More
July 29, 2009 | Los Angeles Times | Detained Iranian Journalist Getting All the Press
Iran's government announced Tuesday that it would release 140 prisoners detained during the political unrest that wracked the country last month, but one now-notable name was not on the list: Maziar Bahari remains in Tehran's Evin prison. Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist for Newsweek, filmmaker, playwright, author and artist, has been getting a lot of attention since his June 21 arrest. >> More
July 17, 2009 | Newsweek| Global Writers and Filmmakers Call for Bahari's Release
Well-known figures from more than 60 countries, from Noam Chomsky to Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, ask Tehran to free the Canadian-Iranian journalist. >> More
July 17, 2009 | New York Times | Court Reverses Ruling Dealing With Visa of Muslim Scholar
A federal appeals court in Manhattan on Friday reversed a lower-court ruling that had allowed the government to bar a prominent Muslim scholar from entering the United States on the ground that he had contributed to a charity that had connections to terrorism. >> More
July 15, 2009 | Carnegie Endowment | Iran: A Conversation About the Elections, Protests, and Future
As the political firestorm unleashed by Iran’s June 12 presidential elections appears far from over, Carnegie co-hosted a conversation on Iran with PEN American Center, The New York Review of Books, and 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center. >> More
July 3, 2009 | New York Times | Talking Iran
PEN American Center, The New York Review of Books and the 92nd Street Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center will host a discussion about the Iranian elections; the program is set for July 15 at the Y, on Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street. >> More
June 25, 2009 | Voice of America | China Rejects International Concern for Jailed Dissident
The Chinese government is rejecting international concerns over jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, saying the case is strictly an internal affair of China. >> More
June 25, 2009 | AsiaOne | US House Speaker slams China arrest of democracy advocate
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged worldwide condemnation of China's decision to arrest prominent pro-democracy dissident Liu Xiaobo. >> More
June 23, 2009 | Toronto Star | Learning the limits of "freedom" in China
Lawyer, rights groups cry foul as police hold writer at secret location without charge since December. >> More
June 11, 2009 | New York Review of Books | The Crisis and How to Deal with It
Following are excerpts from a symposium on the economic crisis presented by The New York Review of Books and PEN World Voices at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 30. The participants were former senator Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, and Robin Wells, with Jeff Madrick as moderator. >> More
May 28, 2009 | The New York Review of Books | The Poet in an Unknown Prison
The following remarks were sent to PEN by Liu's wife, Liu Xia, and read at the award ceremony in New York on April 28. >> More
May 12, 2009 | Village Voice | Lit Seen: James Hannaham's God Says No
James Hannaham and I decide to meet one rainy Friday afternoon in a polished, low-lit midtown hotel, where the men's bathroom is supposed to be great for cruising. Just off the first-floor lobby, the restroom in question is about the size of a Lower East Side bedroom and has mirrors on all four sides, conspicuously immodest urinals, and a private stall with a sturdy lock. >> More
May 7, 2009 | Publishers Weekly | The Evolution Revolution
Two hundred years after Charles Darwin began a discussion of human evolution, people are still talking. The discussion, and specifically the issue of teaching evolution to children, continued Sunday at a PEN World Voices panel held at powerHouse Books in Brooklyn. >> More
May 5, 2009 | The New York Times | A Writer's Violent End, And His Activist Legacy
“I had a surprising call this week,” the author Richard North Patterson told the audience that had gathered last weekend as part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. It was former President Bill Clinton. >> More
May 4, 2009 | Time Out New York | PEN World Voices: Americans seduce foreigners
A couple of interesting PEN World Festival events happened over the weekend: Salman Rushdie and Paul Auster were at Instituto Cervantes (along with Michael Ondaatje and Richard Ford) to drink bubbly and celebrate the progress of the festival, which ends today. Auster, after encouraging folk to drink and flirt, read a section from Lorca’s Poet in New York. >> More
May 1, 2009 | The New York Times | A Manifesto on Freedom Sets China's Persecution Machinery
Behind the west Beijing apartment building where Liu Xia keeps a fifth-floor flat, the police have built a guardhouse. >> More
April 30, 2009 | Los Angeles Times | PEN's World Voices Festival underway
The annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature kicked off Monday and will continue until Sunday. Those of us who aren't in New York for the panels, readings and parties can keep up, luckily, with the many blogs that are following the proceedings. >> More
April 29, 2009 | The Daily Beast | Letting Their Voices Be Heard
As PEN’s World Voices Literary Festival kicked off with a gala at the Museum of Natural History, the literati came out to honor E.L. Doctorow and support the rights of writers. >> More
April 29, 2009 | The New York Observer | Literati Gathers Around a Big Dinosaur at PEN Literary Gala
The American Museum of Natural History was occupied by writers, editors, and agents on Tuesday night, April 28, for the PEN Foundation’s annual black-tie gala. >> More
April 29, 2009 | The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC | Nawal El Saadawi
For more than 50 years, novelist, psychiatrist and activist Dr. Nawal El Saadawi has written books that focus on identity, sexuality and the legal status of women in the Arab world. She continued working despite threats to her life, imprisonment and, ultimately exile from her native Egypt. >> More
April 28, 2009 | NY Daily News | PEN fest offers plenty of Latino voices
This week’s PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature will provide an excellent opportunity for New Yorkers to get a feel of how vast the "Latino" book world is. "It’s about fighting stereotypes," author Eduardo Lago said some of the festival events taking place at Instituto Cervantes, which he presides. >> More
April 28, 2009 | Times Online | The Internet is God's Present to China
On the day he receives a human rights award, a Chinese dissident reveals his gratitude to the web. >> More
April 27, 2009 | Time Out New York | PEN World Voices Festival: Adam Gopnik apologizes to France...
Originally set to kick off today, PEN added an extra tidbit to its program last week: a talk between Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker and Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, the 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. >> More
April 26, 2009 | LaNew-Yorkaise | “Every Word Contains the World”
In her introduction to Friday night’s festival-opening event, Caro Llewellyn, Director of PEN World Voices: The New York Festival of International Literature, feted the festival’s fifth birthday with a retelling of its roots. >> More
April 23, 2009 | Huffington Post | 5 Reasons Why What Happens To Arrested Chinese Writer Liu Matters
Next week, PEN American Center will award one of its highest honors, the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese intellectual and literary critic who played a pivotal role in Tiananmen Square. >> More
April 18, 2009 | The Village Voice | The Mighty Pen
From graphic novelists Neil Gaiman and Adrian Tomine, to downtown icons Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, to literary stars Edwidge Danticat and Colm Toibin, to Hollywood star/Columbia MFA fiction student James Franco, the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature is overloaded with great events for its fifth anniversary. >> More
April 9, 2009 | The New York Times | O. Henry Prize, PEN Announce Partnership
In an era of economic uncertainty and consolidation, even the short story could use a little additional support: the Anchor Books imprint of Random House said that it had partnered with the literary and human rights organization the PEN American Center and that it would rename its annual “O. Henry Prize Stories” collection the “PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.” >> More
April 9, 2009 | The New York Times | Le Clézio Comes to New York
The French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio will appear at the 92nd St Y on April 24 in his first public New York event since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in October. >> More
March 27, 2009| Poets & Writers| 2009 PEN World Voices to Host 160 International Writers and Artists
The fifth annual PEN Word Voices festival will kick off in New York City on April 28, featuring sixty events with writers from forty countries, PEN American Center announced on Wednesday. >> More
March 26, 2009 | The New York Times | PEN Center Sets International Literature Festival
The PEN American Center has announced the lineup for its annual World PEN Voices Festival of International Literature, which will run from April 27 through May 3 in New York. Among the events, which will bring together 160 writers from 40 countries, is the Evolution/Revolution reading series on April 29, which will feature Edwidge Danticat, Salman Rushdie and Muriel Barbery, among other authors, reading in their original languages... >> More
March 25, 2009 | The New York Times | Other Voices, Other Worlds
The lineup for this year’s PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature was announced today at an event held in the beautiful courtyard of the Instituto Cervantes in New York. >> More
March 18, 2009 | IFEX | PEN Presses for End to Ideological Exclusion...
One week before an Appeals Court hears its challenge to the exclusion of Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan from the U.S., PEN joined 59 other organizations in sending a letter to members of the Obama administration urging an end to the practice of refusing visas to foreign writers, intellectuals, and activists based on their ideas and political views. >> More
March 17, 2009 | The New York Times | U.S. Is Urged to Lift Ban on Foreign Scholars
Tariq Ramadan, a respected Swiss academic and Muslim scholar, had a job all lined up at the University of Notre Dame in 2004, but the Bush administration prevented him from entering the country. Government officials said he had contributed to a charity believed to have connections to terrorism. >> More
January 15, 2009 | The New York Review of Books | China's Charter 08
The document below, signed by more than two thousand Chinese citizens, was conceived and written in conscious admiration of the founding of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, where, in January 1977, more than two hundred Czech and Slovak intellectuals formed a loose, informal, and open association of people... >> More
2008
July 19, 2008 | Huffington Post | Iran: Reading Tehran With Lolita (Time to Publish Iranian Writers)
Whether or not the George W. Bush administration's surprising act this week of initiating people-to-people diplomacy with Iran is sincere, it presents a critical opportunity for cultural and human rights organizations in the United States. >> More
July 17, 2008 | NY Review of Books | Please release the Chinese writers in prison
We are concerned that, despite official pledges to respect essential rights in this Olympic year, Chinese authorities continue to harass and detain writers in violation of their right to freedom of expression. >> More
July 14, 2008 | Bloomberg | Iraqi Refugee Survives Day to Day, Helps Others Settle in U.S.
With the help of the International Rescue Committee, the PEN American Center and other human rights organizations, Ali and his family were relocated to Atlanta in December. >> More
July 11, 2008 | USA Today | Chinese activists fear Olympic 'holidays'
Li Fangping, a defense lawyer for two of China's well-known human rights cases, expects to be under 24-hour police surveillance during next month's Olympic Games. >> More
July 10, 2008 | Washington Post | China's Silencing Season
Huang, 45, is among dozens of Chinese writers and lawyers who have been convicted, detained, placed under house arrest, tailed or otherwise harassed as part of China's broad crackdown on dissent in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing next month. >> More
July 8, 2008 | Bloomberg | China Silences Critics as Olympics Near, Report Says
One month before the Aug. 8 start of the Summer Olympics in Beijing, PEN, an international writers' group that monitors human rights abuses, accused the Chinese government of waging a "grinding and relentless campaign to jail or silence prominent dissident voices." >> More
July 8, 2008 | CBC News | PEN gives China failing grade for free expression
Conditions for both international and Chinese journalists have deteriorated between December 2007 and June 2008, according to a report released Tuesday by PEN Canada, the PEN American Centre, and the Independent Chinese PEN Centre. >> More
July 7, 2008 | Reuters | China media clamps slammed a month before Olympics
A month before the Olympics, China continues to severely breach its pledge to allow full media freedoms, harassing and restricting foreign journalists in Tibet and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on Monday. >> More
July 7, 2008 | Globe and Mail | The real score on freedom of expression in China
fter additional arrests and releases, there are now 44 writers and journalists in Chinese prisons – one month before opening day in Beijing. >> More
June 26, 2008 | New York Times | Activists Warned on Olympic Protests
In the latest sign of efforts to prevent dissent during the Beijing Olympics, political activists in Shanghai say they have been warned against expressing their opinions, speaking with foreigners or visiting Beijing until after the Games. >> More
June 25, 2008 | Arts Fuse | No Metals for Human Rights
Last week the PEN American Center announced it was sending out letters to the Bush Administration and Congressional leaders protesting, fifty days before the start of the Olympics, the curtailment of human rights in China. >> More
June 15, 2008 | Reuters | Concern over detentions in China quake zone
Two human rights groups expressed concern on Sunday over the fate of Huang Qi, a Chinese activist who friends fear was detained for offering support to families of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake. >> More
June 7, 2008 | AP| Outcast writer seeks stories in China's quake zone
The people Liao Yiwu interviews exist on the fringe of Chinese society, and more than a few live closely with death. The mortician. The grave robber. The professional mourner, who now can't be found. >> More
June 4, 2008 | Miami Herald | It's same old repression in a new package
As shoppers in Havana mobbed electronic stores looking for DVD players, writer and independent journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez was quietly returned to Kilo 7 prison in Camaguey, Cuba. >> More
May 30, 2008 | Bloomberg| Cubans Send Sick Dissident Writer Gonzalez to 'Subhuman' Jail
Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, a gravely ill dissident Cuban writer, was secretly returned three weeks ago from a Havana military hospital to solitary confinement in Kilo 7, a backwater prison, his mother confirmed today. >> More
May 28, 2008 | USA Today | China activists harassed for speaking on human rights
Chinese activists said Tuesday that they were harassed by police and warned not to talk to U.S. officials visiting China for the first human rights talks between the two countries in six years. >> More
May 7, 2008 | Reuters | China dissident writer faces subversion charge
A dissident Chinese writer in police custody faces trial for inciting subversion as part of an apparent government crackdown on dissent ahead of the Beijing Olympics, three writers' associations said. >> More
May 2, 2008 | Metro New York | Writers take on China Censorship
The campaign was launched last December by the PEN American Center, which believes these 39 were jailed for exercising their right to speak and write freely — an act guaranteed under Chinese law. >> More
May 1, 2008 | Publisher's Weekly | PEN Petitions Chinese Government to Release Imprisoned Writers
At a press conference in New York this morning PEN announced its intent to petition the Chinese government to free 39 Chinese writers who have been jailed for exercising their right to speak and write freely. >> More
May 1, 2008 | PRI | Writers petition China
A group of writers delivered a letter today to China's United Nations mission in New York. The letter urged the release of 39 Chinese writers and journalists believed to be imprisoned in China. >> More
May 1, 2008 | VOA | Writers Demand China Release Imprisoned Writers
Members of the PEN American Center say the petition is simply asking the Chinese government to live up to the pledge Beijing made to improve its human rights record when the nation secured the Olympic Games in 2001. >> More
April 30, 2008 | NPR | Chinese Dissident Honored for Writings
Yang Tongyan is serving a 12-year sentence in a Chinese prison for publishing anti-government articles on the Internet. Larry Siems, director of the PEN American Center, explains why Yang is being honored with the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. >> More
April 27, 2008 | The New York Times | Laura Berg’s Letter
The PEN American Center, the literary organization committed to free expression, is honoring an American most people in this country have never read or even heard of: Laura Berg. >> More
April 25, 2008 | New York Times | PEN Petitions China
With its annual World Voices Festival of International Literature coming to town next week, PEN American Center, the human rights organization for writers, is focusing on China as the Beijing Olympic Games approach. >> More
April 16, 2008 | Epoch Times | Jailed Epoch Times Contributor to Receive Award
A Chinese dissident writer and Epoch Times contributor has been awarded the prestigious 2008 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. >> More
April 16, 2008 | Bloomberg | Condemned Afghan Journalist Wins Right to Appeal Death Sentence
A young Afghan journalist, sentenced to death in January for spreading feminist criticism of Islam, has been granted an appeal, according to one of the international organizations monitoring his case. >> More
April 15, 2008 | Huffington Post | British Author Barred for 'Moral Turpitude'
Something we don't hear about enough from the mainstream media, thanks to the cat fight that has become the Democratic Party nomination process, is not only what we are doing to our detainees, who's giving the thumbs-up to do it, but also this administration's quiet jihad against foreign scholars, and writers. >> More
April 14, 2008 | New York Post | Battling over a master of filth
Sure, flamboyant British artist Sebastian Horsley has done loads of drugs, had sex with hookers, worked as a prostitute himself and was once voluntarily nailed to a cross—but, according to PEN, the prestigious New York literary group, the US government is dead wrong in banning him from coming here to promote his new X-rated autobiography. >> More
April 12, 2008 | Washington Post | Jailed Chinese Writer To Receive PEN Award
Yang Tongyan, a Chinese writer serving a 12-year prison term for posting anti-government articles on the Internet, will receive this year's PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. >> More
April 12, 2008 | New York Times | Writer Jailed in China Wins a PEN Award
Yang Tongyan, right, a Chinese writer serving a 12-year prison term for posting antigovernment articles on the Internet, will receive the 22nd annual PEN Freedom to Write Award, Bloomberg News reported. >> More
April 11, 2008 | Herald Tribune | Toni Morrison to be honored at PEN gala
Best-selling author Toni Morrison will accept the PEN/Borders Literary Service Award at the 2008 PEN Literary Gala, which takes place April 28 at New York City's American Museum of Natural History, with journalist Christiane Amanpour serving as emcee. >> More
April 8, 2008 | CNW | Tracking Olympic Torch Relay, PEN Poem Relay lands in North America
Raising awareness of rights violations in China through poetry, the PEN Poem Relay is crossing the globe, touching down in North America on April 9. >> More
April 8, 2008 | Reuters | Protest poem "relay" tackles China on human rights
Canada will take part in a virtual demonstration against China's human rights policies on Wednesday via a poem "relay" organized by an international writers' association as tensions brew worldwide ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games. >> More
April 7, 2008 | Bloomberg | Horsley, U.K.'s Incorrigible Memoirist, Finds Advocates at PEN
Sebastian Horsley, the British bad- boy memoirist accused of moral turpitude and possible fashion crimes, hopes to participate next month in the PEN American Center's World Voices Festival in New York. >> More
April 7, 2008 | Spiegel | 'If the Games Fail, Human Rights Will Suffer'
With the Olympic Games rapidly approaching, more attention than ever is being focused on China's handling of protests in Tibet and on the state of human rights in the Communist country. >> More
April 4, 2008 | rabble | Words Without Borders
What is the role of writers in a country where repression and imprisonment greet efforts to express their ideas freely? >> More
April 2, 2008 | New York Times | PEN Rallies Behind Ousted Author
When it comes to publicity, being denied entry into the United States may be the best thing that ever happened to Sebastian Horsley, right, unless you count being hung on a cross in the Philippines. >> More
April 1, 2008 | FOXNews | Writers' Group Appeals U.S. Exclusion of UK Author
An advocacy group for writers appealed to U.S. officials Monday to review the exclusion of a British author whose most recent book chronicles his years of heavy drug use and frequent visits to prostitutes. >> More
March 22, 2008 | The Epoch Times | Will Chinese Regime Silence Media's Coverage?
The Chinese regime sought first to silence the protest of the monks in Lhasa with a violent crackdown on March 14 that reminded the world of Tiananmen Square in 1989. >> More
March 21, 2008 | Reuters | Rushdie and McEwan Head World Voice Festival Line-up
The international writers group PEN announced participants and programs for its annual World Voices Festival of International Literature on Thursday, featuring Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates and actress Mia Farrow. >> More
March 21, 2008 | Village Voice | PEN World Voices Festival
The PEN American Center kicked off its annual World Voices Festival Thursday at a luncheon aboard the ocean liner Queen Mary 2. >> More
March 17, 2008 | Wei Jingsheng | No time to close our eyes
If there has been any lesson in all my years as an activist for democracy and human rights in China, it is that only international pressure coupled with internal pressure will yield solid results. >> More
March 16, 2008 | New York Times | Waves Through the Book World
Cunard, the British cruise company, has joined with the PEN American Center, the writers’ group, to create a book club on the high seas. >> More
March 10, 2008 | Poets & Writers | Toi Derricotte, A.M. Homes, and Peter Straub To Receive Awards
Congratulations to A.M. Homes, who will receive the Barnes & Noble Writers For Writers Award, in recognition of her service to PEN and other organizations. Homes currently chairs the PEN Emergency Writers Fund and serves on the PEN Board.
2007
November 11, 2007 | Ana Menendez | Jailed Writers Can't Be Silenced
November 11, 2007 | Ana Menendez | Jailed Writers Can't Be Silenced Writing, like other compulsions, can be dangerous for your health. It can bring fame and fortune, which is bad enough -- Pen a hard truth and you also face calumny, imprisonment and death. >> More
October 24, 2007 | Bloomberg | Abused Cuban Journalist, Spirit Strong, Worsening in Hospital
Imprisoned Cuban journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, hospitalized last month, faces medical procedures today that family members said could further imperil his already fragile health. >> More
October 22, 2007 | New York Times | Say What You Like, Just Don't Say It Here
The American commitment to free speech is the most robust in the world. But these days that tolerance stops at the border. >> More
September 30, 2007 | San Francisco Chronicle | Promoting democracy while suppressing ideas
This spring, the U.S. State Department sent a message to the Association of American Publishers announcing new procedures for expediting business visas for U.S. companies' foreign employees, customers and potential clients traveling to the United States. >> More
September 26, 2007 | New York Times | Free Speech Groups Sue Over Visa Denial
The government is increasingly using secret evidence allowed under new antiterrorism laws to prevent certain critics from entering the United States, according to a group of civil rights and academic organizations. >> More
September 18, 2007 | Bloomberg | Jailed Cuban Writer, Extremely Ill, Hospitalized; May Be Freed
In the early morning hours of Sept. 14, jailed Cuban journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez was transferred across the island nation from Kilo 7, a prison in Camaguey, to Carlos J. Finlay military hospital in Havana.
August 17, 2007 | New York Times | Liam Rector, 57, a Poet and Educator, Dies
Liam Rector, a well-regarded poet and educator whose work appeared in many distinguished publications, shot himself on Wednesday morning at his home in Greenwich Village. He was 57. >> More
July 19, 2007 | Haroon Siddiqui | Bush can do more for refugees
There is George W. Bush and there's Larry Siems. Siems is among those Americans, like Senator Ted Kennedy, who want their president to take moral responsibility for creating the refugee crisis in Iraq. >> More
June 28, 2007 | Bloomberg | Cuba Keeps Writer in Jail: No Medicine for Hernandez Gonzalez
"Mi hijo esta muy mal. Muy mal." Even on the speakerphone from Miami, Blanca Gonzalez's voice is unmistakably choked with emotion. "My son is doing badly. Very badly," she says. "He said that from there he will leave dead." >> More
June 3, 2007 | Roxana Robinson | The Novelist and the Curious Cabbie
June 3, 2007 | Roxana Robinson | The Novelist and the Curious Cabbie I was standing on the curb, uptown, my hand raised for a cab. It was evening, and the sky was clear and the air cool. I had plenty of time, and I was happy: I was on my way to an international literary festival. >> More
May 13, 2007 | David Grossman | Writing in the Dark
At times I feel as if I am digging up people from the ice in which reality enshrouded them, but maybe, more than anything else, it is myself that I am now digging up. >> More
May 2, 2007 | The New York Sun | PEN Honors Cuban Dissident
An independent journalist, Normando Hernández González, was awarded the 2007 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on Monday night. He could not travel to receive the award at the PEN American Center's Literary Gala because he languishes in prison in Cuba for his role in starting an independent newspaper and a school for journalists there. >> More
April 24, 2007 | New York Times | For Writers, a Voice Beyond the Page
Nadine Gordimer, the South African novelist and Nobel Prize winner, said writing could be political almost by default. “Everyone is influenced by the framework in which they live, so that politics comes into everything. It’s not expressed by us in a didactic way, but comes through our creation of characters who are indeed made up of the kind of world and the kind of reactions that people have toward that world.” >> More
March 26, 2007 | George Packer | Betrayed
March 26, 2007 | George Packer | Betrayed America’s failure to understand, trust, and protect its closest friends in Iraq is a small drama that contains the larger history of defeat. >> More
March 21, 2007 | Washington Post | PEN Event Features Rushdie, Steve Martin
Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, Salman Rushdie and Steve Martin will be among the many writers and performers featured at the third annual PEN World Voices festival, to be held April 24-29 in settings throughout New York City. >> More
February 26, 2007 | Washington Post | For Roth, a 3rd PEN/Faulkner Win
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation will announce today that Philip Roth has won its 2007 award for fiction for his novel Everyman—making Roth the first writer to receive the award three times. >> More
February 14, 2007 | New York Times | No Rest for a Feminist Fighting Radical Islam
Ayaan Hirsi Ali came to the attention of the wider world in an extraordinary way. In 2004 a Muslim fanatic, after shooting the filmmaker Theo van Gogh dead on an Amsterdam street, pinned a letter to Mr. van Gogh’s chest with a knife. Addressed to Ms. Hirsi Ali, the letter called for holy war against the West and, more specifically, for her death. >> More
February 4, 2007 | New York Times | Hungry Heart
Staring at a map of her new country, Nguyen wondered about New York and Los Angeles: “I had no idea what such cities were like, but I was convinced people were happier out on the coasts, living in a nexus between so much land and water. Gazing at the crisscrossing lines of Manhattan or the blue vastness of the oceans, I would feel something I could only describe as missingness.” >> More
January 18, 2007 | Wall Street Journal | Lost in Translation
Since the start of the war, 257 Iraqi interpreters have been killed, says Titan Corp. of San Diego, which just completed a five-year, $4.6 billion Pentagon contract to provide linguists to U.S. forces. Most of those killed were assassinated while on home leave, the company says. >> More
January 22, 2007 | Elif Shafak | The Murder of Hrant Dink
Few people can inspire a whole nation in their lifetime, fewer still with their death. Hrant Dink did both. He was a prominent journalist, the editor of the Armenian weekly Agos, an outspoken intellectual, a peace activist, a true citizen of Istanbul and a dear friend. >> More
January 17, 2007 | The Progressive | Journalist on Hot Seat in Court-Martial Case
Sarah Olson was on a big story, and now she has become a part of it. The freelance journalist was one of the first reporters to cover the story of Lt. Ehren Watada, who is facing a court martial for publicly refusing to deploy to Iraq. Watada has denounced the war as “illegal and unjust.” >> More
January 1, 2007 | New York Times | Few Iraqis Are Gaining U.S. Sanctuary
With thousands of Iraqis desperately fleeing this country every day, advocates for refugees, and even some American officials, say there is an urgent need to allow more Iraqi refugees into the United States. >> More
2006
November 27, 2006 | George Packer | Save Whomever We Can
November 27, 2006 | George Packer | Save Whomever We Can Recently, I asked my friend what he would do if U.S. forces began to withdraw from Baghdad. Osman, an utterly secular Sunni who despises the religious extremists of both sects, replied, "I would have to be protected by Al Qaeda." >> More
November 20, 2006 | Basim Mardan | Lost After Translation
The Marines paid me $150 a month, which was better than the $2 I was making as a librarian. So I didn’t see weapons in their hands, I saw flowers, and I took them all as friends. I loved what I was doing because I thought it was a good thing for my country. >> More
November 20, 2006 | Waddah Ali | Fear of Freedom
History is an idea to you; to us it is our life. I’m a typical Iraqi. I love my country. I love my food, my way of life, I love the carpets, the mud of the Euphrates, Iraqi poetry, everything: this is my culture. >> More
November 20, 2006 | Omar Ghanim Fathi | Republic of Dreams
In Saddam Hussein’s time, in order to be accepted you had to tell the government that you were a Baathist; you had to tell people in your social environment that you were religious; and in fact you had to be somewhere in the middle. >> More
October 30, 2006 | Glamour Magazine | Global Diary: Mexico
When I first heard about Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho, I knew I wanted to meet her. This remarkable woman created an international uproar last year after she wrote a book claiming that local power brokers were tied to a pedophile ring in the popular resort town of Cancun. But she, and I, had a problem: Too many people wanted Lydia dead. >> More
October 9, 2006 | George Packer | Keep Out
October 9, 2006 | George Packer | Keep Out State and Homeland Security have interpreted the language of the Patriot Act so loosely that, according to official documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, anyone who is guilty of “irresponsible expressions of opinion” can be refused entry to the United States. >> More
October 12, 2006 | New York Times | Turkish writer wins Nobel Prize in Literature
Orhan Pamuk, whose uncommon lyrical gifts and uncompromising politics have brought him acclaim worldwide and prosecution at home, won the Nobel literature prize for his works dealing with the symbols of clashing cultures. >> More
October 1, 2006 | Tariq Ramadan | Why I'm Banned in the USA
Unfortunately, the U.S. government's paranoia has evolved far beyond a fear of particular individuals and taken on a much more insidious form: the fear of ideas. >> More
September 30, 2006 | New York Times | Turkish Writers Say Efforts to Stifle Speech May Backfire
Not a week after a court dropped the case against a best-selling Turkish novelist, another well-known writer was charged with the same crime, one of the most ambiguous and contentious here, that of “insulting Turkishness.” >> More
September 28, 2006 | Ron Chernow | National Press Club Remarks
September 28, 2006 | Ron Chernow | National Press Club Remarks I think we should always be alarmed when there’s a growing imbalance betwen what the government knows about its citizens, and what those citizens, in turn, know about their government. >> Read more
September 24, 2006 | Edwidge Danticat | Does It Work?
September 24, 2006 | Edwidge Danticat | Does It Work? For many who remember what it means to live under a dictatorial regime, a regime in which citizens must leave work or school to witness public executions, torture is not just an individual affliction but a communal one. >> More
September 21, 2006 | The Guardian | Acquittal for Turkish novelist
Shafak told Guardian Unlimited that she was "very happy with the outcome", but still concerned about threats to freedom of expression in Turkey. >> More
September 15, 2006 | New York Times | Turkey, a Touchy Critic, Plans to Put a Novel on Trial
“Article 301 has been used by ultranationalists as a weapon to silence political voices in Turkey,” Ms. Shafak said. “In that sense, my case is not unusual. But for the first time, they are trying to bring a novel into court. The way they are trying to penetrate the domain of art and literature is quite new, and quite disturbing.” >> More
August 18, 2006 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The shadow world of a 'dirty war'
August 18, 2006 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The shadow world of a 'dirty war' The law provides us with a rational, commonly ratified code of morality. In subverting this shared deference to law, the Bush administration, with its zeal for secrecy, intimidation and shadowy alliances, endangers us all. >> More
August 30, 2006 | Akbar Ganji | 'We Don't Want War'
August 30, 2006 | Akbar Ganji | 'We Don't Want War' Renowned Iranian investigative journalist and dissident discusses with Democracy Now! why he recently declined an invitation to the meet with President Bush in the White House. >> More
August 25, 2006 | Chronicle of Higher Education | Government Declines to Appeal Ruling
In a case considered a bellwether of United States policy toward foreign scholars, the government has decided not to appeal a court ruling ordering it to either issue a visa to Tariq Ramadan or provide good reasons for not doing so. >> More
August 18, 2006 | New York Times | Ruling for the Law
Ever since President Bush was forced to admit that he was spying on Americans’ telephone calls and e-mail without warrants, his lawyers have fought to keep challenges to the program out of the courts. >> More
August 15, 2006 | New York Times | Who’s Afraid of Shirin Ebadi?
Shirin Ebadi, the lawyer who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, has been threatened with arrest unless she closes the Center for Protecting Human Rights in Tehran. >> More
August 1, 2006 | Akbar Ganji | Money Can't Buy Us Democracy
August 1, 2006 | Akbar Ganji | Money Can't Buy Us Democracy The battle between freedom and despotism in Iran remains unresolved for deeply internal reasons. It is, I am convinced, a problem with profound historical and cultural roots. >> More
July 13, 2006 | New York Sun | Novelist May Be Jailed for a Character's Remarks
Elif Shafak will appear in the country's seventh high criminal court on charges of violating Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code. >> More
June 26, 2006 | Publishers Weekly | PEN Fights Good Fight for Int'l Writer
When prominent Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan was denied a U.S. visa because of statements he'd made against the U.S. government, the PEN American Center joined the crusade supporting the scholar. >> More
June 26, 2006 | The Progressive | Tariq Ramadan Wins One
While denying that Ramadan was excluded on ideological grounds, Jones said, “Professor Ramadan, tomorrow, could endorse or espouse terrorism.” >> More
June 24, 2006 | New York Times | Judge Orders U.S. to Decide If Muslim Scholar Can Enter
A federal judge in New York yesterday ordered the Bush administration to decide by September whether to grant an entry visa to a prominent Muslim scholar. >> More
June 15, 2006 | Nevada News | Assistant English professor’s debut work wins PEN award
Christopher Coake, an assistant English professor, received the prestigious PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers for his debut work, "We’re in Trouble," a collection of dramatic short stories, on May 22. >> More
May 25, 2006 | Orhan Pamuk | Freedom to Write
May 25, 2006 | Orhan Pamuk | Freedom to Write To respect the humanity and religious beliefs of minorities is not to suggest that we should limit freedom of thought on their behalf. >> More
May 21, 2006 | The Wichita Eagle | WSU prof 'fills gap' with translation
Baldridge's training in philosophy prepared him well for the works of French poet and intellectual Michel Deguy. >> More
May 14, 2006 | Philadelphia Inquirer Shriek it, chant it: 'Howl' turns 50
On stage in the New School auditorium, moderator and literary biographer Robert Polito described Howl to hundreds in the audience as a "grim but funny effort" that, like much enduring literature, beguiles through ambiguity. >> More
May 11, 2006 | Christian Science Monitor | Uncle Sam Doesn't Want You
Why have prominent foreign scholars had their visas to speak or teach in this country denied or revoked? Many, including the academic institutions who invited them, are baffled. >> More
May 3, 2006 | Philadelphia Inquirer | A literary world out there, but not for U.S.
By both force of numbers and abundant literary talent, however, many of the writers challenged America's stinginess toward other literary cultures, what Italian writer Roberto Calasso called "a lethal mixture of provincialism and imperialism. >> More
May 3, 2006 | New York Sun | A Dark & Powerful Force From Down South
If you haven't heard of Roberto Bolano, you will soon. The Chilean author, who died of liver failure in 2003, was the subject of a major panel discussion at last week's PEN festival. >> More
May 3, 2006 | Turkish Daily News | Philip Roth wins $20,000 PEN award
Philip Roth, whose many novels include "Portnoy's Complaint" and "The Plot Against America," has received the PEN/Nabokov Award for lifetime achievement, a prize worth $20,000. >> More
May 3, 2006 | New York Sun | An Enlightenment Fundamentalist
Like an increasing number of immigrants in the West who refuse to have a "victim" label pinned to their lapels, the Dutch-Somalian actress, author, and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali represents something of a problem for liberal intellectuals. >> More
May 2, 2006 | IPS News | A Chill in the Air
"Thanks in large part to the Patriot Act, our government is once again excluding foreign writers and scholars from the country simply because of their political beliefs." >> More
May 2, 2006 | Literary Voices, Loud & Clear | New York Sun
The Argentinean-born author Rodrigo Fresan spoke at a BenettonTalk Young Writers Series on Saturday, as part of the PEN World Voices Festival. >> More
May 2006 | Jhumpa Lahiri interview | KGB Bar Lit
May 2006 | Jhumpa Lahiri interview | KGB Bar Lit I don't see myself playing a political role, but I do think that it's vital to contribute to a broader understanding of freedom of expression and of cultural tolerance and exchange, especially given the extent to which these values have been threatened in recent times. >> More
April 29, 2006 | Jeanette Winterson | Her Word
April 29, 2006 | Jeanette Winterson | Her Word We are creating a world divided between faith-based fanaticism on the one hand, and amoral science and global market “logic” on the other. >> More
April 28, 2006 | El Pais | El festival de PEN
El texto literario es una promesa que nunca se alcanza. >> More
April 28, 2006 | EITB | Basque writer Bernardo Atxaga at NY Festival of International Lit
The Basque well-known writer Bernardo Atxaga is taking part these days in the PEN World Voices, the New York Festival of International Literature. >> More
April 27, 2006 | Turkish Daily News | Pamuk: Iraq war is the shame of US and West
Turkey's internationally acknowledged novelist, Orhan Pamuk, leveled harsh criticism at the U.S.-led war in Iraq by saying that the Iraq war did not bring peace or democracy to the region but rather sparked nationalist and anti-Western sentiments. >> More
April 27, 2006 | El Pais | Rushdie acusa a Bush
Hay momentos en los que los escritores son realmente importantes. Y el actual es uno de ellos, según el novelista Salman Rushdie, presidente del festival literario PEN Voces del mundo. >> More
April 27, 2006 | New York Times | In a Break From Mystery, A Writer Turns to Africa
To many English speakers Henning Mankell is probably best known as the creator of Inspector Kurt Wallander, a morose, self-loathing plainclothes officer whose dark vision of himself is matched only by the bleakness of the Swedish terrain and weather in which he somehow manages to track down the villains. >> More
April 26, 2006 | El Pais | Los escritores cruzan la línea entre la razón y la fe
Fe y razón son dos conceptos que coexisten en una relación que no es sencilla. ¿Qué papel juega la literatura en esta compleja interacción que discurre por todo el mundo? >> More
April 24, 2006 | The New Yorker | The Land of Turkmenbashi
Of the fifteen states of the former Soviet empire, Turkmenistan, just north of Iran, is the one that has turned out to be a cruel blend of Kim Jong Il’s North Korea and L. Frank Baum’s Oz. >> More
April 21, 2006 | New York Times | Found in Translation: Endangered Languages
Some 6,500 languages spoken in the world today. And, according to the 2000 census, you can hear at least 92 of them on the streets of New York. >> More
April 20, 2006 | New York Times | In Surprise, PEN Honoree Attends Gala
A novelist from Turkmenistan whose books have been banned and who has been under house arrest for two years became the first writer in 20 years to personally accept a Freedom to Write award from PEN American Center. >> More
April 19, 2006 | USA Today | PEN recognizes the write to be free
Authors tend to complain. About their publishers or editors. About not selling enough books or getting enough attention. But every spring, PEN, an international group of writers, holds a literary gala that puts the everyday concerns of authors in perspective. >> More
April 14, 2006 | New York Times | Hearing For Muslim Barred by U.S.
Government lawyers clarified some mysteries yesterday and deepened others in the case of Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim scholar and leading European theologian of Islam who has been barred by the Bush administration from traveling to the United States since July 2004. >> More
April 2006 | Blogroll
Read about PEN World Voices from blogs around the world. >> More
March 29, 2006 | Bernardo Atxaga | The Basque Spring
March 29, 2006 | Bernardo Atxaga | The Basque Spring The story that began when a group of university students founded Basque Homeland and Liberty, the organization known as ETA, has finally come to an end with its announcement last week of a permanent cease-fire. >> More
March 27, 2006 | Etgar Keret | Stupor in Our Time
March 27, 2006 | Etgar Keret | Stupor in Our Time If, after all the hopes and disappointments, all the accords and intifadas, the best a whole country can wish for is a politician so nondescript that the pundits are still arguing over whether he's on the left or the right — if we want a non-event on Election Day — then we really must be exhausted. >> More
February 24, 2006 | Fatima Shaik | Masking New Orleans
February 24, 2006 | Fatima Shaik | Masking New Orleans On Mardi Gras Day, the nation will be looking to New Orleans to see if we are wearing masks. >> More
February 21, 2006 | Christian Century | Religion scholars join suit vs. Patriot Act
The ACLU and three other groups, including the large American Academy of Religion, have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to strike down a USA Patriot Act clause they say is applied wrongly to stifle academic debate. >> More
January 26, 2006 | New York Times | Lawsuit Filed in Support of Muslim Scholar Barred From U.S.
Citing the case of a prominent Muslim scholar who has been barred from the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit yesterday seeking to strike down a clause of the USA Patriot Act that bars foreigners who endorse terrorism from entering to this country. >> More
January 6, 2005 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The Torturer General
January 6, 2005 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The Torturer General It seems surreal: The president's nominee for the highest legal position in the land is a proponent of torture. >> More
2005
December 22, 2005 | Fatima Shaik | Christmas in New Orleans
December 22, 2005 | Fatima Shaik | Christmas in New Orleans Picture Santa’s sled with a rolling kitchenette attached and you have some idea about the size of a FEMA trailer. >> More
November 25, 2005 | Christian Science Monitor | When US bars its door to foreign scholars
Concern is mounting that the US government is using antiterror laws--namely, the Patriot Act--to revive a now-discredited practice common during the cold war: the prevention of foreign intellectuals who are critical of administration policies from entering the country and sharing their views with Americans. >> More
November 11, 2005 | Inside Higher Ed | New Challenge on Visa Denials
To many academics, one of the most fearsome parts of the Patriot Act is section 411, which allows the government to deny visas to prominent individuals from abroad who have used their positions to endorse terrorism. >> More
November 6, 2005 | Washington Post | The FBI's Secret Scrutiny
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. >> More
November 6, 2005 | New York Times | Lawmakers call for limits on F.B.I. power
"We should not ever give up freedom on the basis of fear, and any freedom that we give up should be limited in time and limited in scope," Senator Tom Coburn. >> More
October 12, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Test for East and West
October 12, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Test for East and West The work room of the writer Orhan Pamuk looks out over the Bosphorus, that fabled strip of water which, depending on how you see these things, separates or unites—or, perhaps, separates and unites—the worlds of Europe and Asia. >> More
October 22, 2005 | Washington Post | ...But Not at Writers' Expense
Google says writers and publishers should be happy about this: It will increase their exposure and maybe lead to more book sales. That's a devil's bargain. >> More
October 22, 2005 | Washington Post | Riches We Must Share...
The digitization of information is a profound gesture that holds open our doors. Limiting access to information is tantamount to limiting the opportunities of our citizens. >> More
October 8, 2005 | New York Times | Binding the Hands of Torturers
When the Senate voted this week to bring America's chain of military prison camps under the rule of law, President Bush threatened a veto. >> More
October 6, 2005 | New York Times | Senate Moves to Protect Military Prisoners Despite Veto Threat
In a sharp rebuke to the White House, the Senate overwhelmingly agreed Wednesday to regulate the detention, interrogation and treatment of prisoners held by the American military. >> More
October 3, 2005 | New York Times | In Challenge To Google, Yahoo Will Scan Books
An unusual alliance of corporations, nonprofit groups and universities plans to announce today an ambitious plan to digitize hundreds of thousands of books over the next several years and put them on the Internet, with the full text accessible to anyone. >> More
September 19, 2005 | Bell Gale Chevigny | A Shock to the System
September 19, 2005 | Bell Gale Chevigny | A Shock to the System When their government turned its back on them, survivors of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake were galvanized into political action. Katrina survivors may take a similar lesson from today's disaster. >> More
September 11, 2005 | Alice Sebold | Living With the Dead
September 11, 2005 | Alice Sebold | Living With the Dead These tragedies, it's worth remembering, grant us an opportunity to understand what is perhaps our finest raw material: our humanity. >> More
September 10, 2005 | New York Times | Abu Ghraib Unresolved
Ever since the world learned of the illegal detentions and brutal behavior at American military prisons, the Bush administration has bet it could outlast public outrage with phony investigations and stonewalling. >> More
September 4, 2005 | Anne Rice | Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
September 4, 2005 | Anne Rice | Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. >> More
September 4, 2005 | Richard Ford | Elegy for My City
September 4, 2005 | Richard Ford | Elegy for My City I write in the place of others, today, for the ones who can't be found. And there is a blunt ending now, one we always feared, never wished for, do not deserve. >> More
August 2, 2005 | Gerald Posner | The Kingdom and the Power
August 2, 2005 | Gerald Posner | The Kingdom and the Power In May, Ali al-Domeini, a leading poet, and two scholars were given long prison sentences for having circulated a letter they had written to Crown Prince Abdullah calling for political, economic and social reforms. >> More
May 17, 2005 | Joan Airoldi | Librarian's brush with FBI shapes her view of the USA Patriot Act
On June 8, 2004, an FBI agent stopped at the Deming branch of the Whatcom County Library System in northwest Washington and requested a list of the people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. We said no. >> More
April 27, 2005 | Arab News | Word and World in New York
You’re enamored of books, ideas and the life of the mind? Then you should’ve attended the weeklong PEN World Voices. >> More
April 24, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Books vs. Goons
April 24, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Books vs. Goons 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. >> More
April 23, 2005 | New York Times | A Crowd That's Seldom at a Loss for Words
It was one of the largest international gatherings of writers in New York since the PEN international congress of 1986. >> More
April 21, 2005 | Seattle Times | Deming's defender of words
The biggest battles, the ones that Really Count, always seem to start in the smallest places. >> More
April 17, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | The Pen and the Sword
April 17, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | The Pen and the Sword In January 1986 I came to New York for a gathering of writers that has become a literary legend. >> More
April 16, 2005 | Globe & Mail | Still tilting at Quixote 400 years later
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. >> More
April 15, 2005 | New York Press | Salman Rushdie Interview
It’s ridiculous that New York doesn’t have an international literary festival. It was an obvious hole in the cultural calendar we wanted to fill. >> More
March 21, 2006 | New York Times | Biographer to Lead PEN Center in the U.S.
March 21, 2006 | New York Times | Biographer to Lead PEN Center in the U.S. At the annual meeting of the PEN American Center on Thursday night, the organization of writers and editors is expected to ratify Ron Chernow, the best-selling biographer of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton, as its next president. >> More
February 7, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Democracy Is No Polite Tea Party
February 7, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Democracy Is No Polite Tea Party I recently returned from a trip to Britain, where I discovered, to my consternation, that the government is proposing a law to ban what it is calling "incitement to religious hatred." >> More
January 6, 2005 | Mark Danner | We Are All Torturers Now
January 6, 2005 | Mark Danner | We Are All Torturers Now At least since Watergate, Americans have come to take for granted a certain story line of scandal, in which revelation is followed by investigation, adjudication and expiation. >> More
2004
December 26, 2004 | Pioneer Press | Ruminating on a troubled future
The government is going to tell us what we are going to read and can't read. If these authors are really enemies, wouldn't it be better to understand them instead of keeping their books out? >> More
December 16, 2004 | Miami Herald | Firms allowed to print Cuban works
Academic publishers claimed victory on Wednesday when the U.S. government relaxed rules about printing works from Cuba and other blacklisted countries in response to a lawsuit filed in September. >> More
December 11, 2004 | Washington Post | Will her voice ever be heard?
Ever wonder what happened to the State Department's chief of propaganda? The head of public diplomacy was supposed to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim street. >> More
December 9, 2004 | Hartford Courant | Lauded Writer Given Parole
The state has granted parole to a woman who won a $25,000 writing award with the help of best-selling author Wally Lamb. >> More
December 2, 2004 | Boston Globe | Iran Inanity
Orwellian bureaucratic rules meant to impose sanctions on undemocratic or unfriendly regimes should not be used to silence democrats who oppose those regimes. >> More
November 24, 2004 | Edwidge Danticat | A Very Haitian Story
November 24, 2004 | Edwidge Danticat | A Very Haitian Story When the international and combined Haitian forces left Bel-Air, gang members came to my uncle's home, told him that 15 of their friends had been killed and said he had to pay for the burials or die. >> More
November 19, 2004 | Contra Costa Times | At the library
In case you have ever wondered about the power of words, writers and books, this amazing situation may answer your question. >> More
November 16, 2004 | New York Times | Bound But Gagged
I learned, sometimes in the face of tragedy, that the written word is often the most powerful—and only—tool that we have to protect those who are powerless. >> More
November 12, 2004 | Chronicle of Higher Education | Illegal Trafficking
Most American scholars remain blissfully ignorant of the risks of international collaboration. Yet simply publishing in the United States an article co-written by a colleague from Cuba, Iran, or Sudan could subject the editor or publisher to criminal liability and fines of up to $500,000 or 10 years in prison. >> More
November 1, 2004 | Wall Street Journal | Nobel Laureate sues U.S.
When Ms. Ebadi sought to publish her memoirs in the U.S., she was startled to discover that doing so would be illegal, under a trade embargo intended to punish repressive governments such as the regime in Tehran that once sent her to jail. >> More
October 9, 2004 | Chicago Tribute | Right to Publish
The rule should be simple: The free exchange of ideas in books and other papers is not trading with the enemy. >> More
September 30, 2004 | New York Sun | Trade groups sue Treasury on Freedom of Speech issues
Two publishing trade organizations have jointly filed suit against the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control in a New York federal court. >> More
September 30, 2004 | Baltimore Sun | Curb the Thought
The Treasury Department's bone-headed decision not to allow U.S. publishers to edit the works of writers from trade-sanctioned countries has ended up in court. >> More
September 29, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Campaign for Reader Privacy press conference
September 29, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Campaign for Reader Privacy press conference Why does the government need the power to search records of people who are not suspected of being terrorists or agents of a foreign government? >> More
September 29, 2004 | New York Times | Ending Editorial Oversight at the Treasury Department
No matter how the Treasury Department's ruling is framed, denying editorial cooperation of this kind deprives us as much as it does the sanctioned countries. >> More
September 28, 2004 | New York Times | Treasury Dept. Being Sued for Curbs on Editing
The regulations, meant to keep Americans from trading with enemies, require anyone who publishes material from a country under trade sanctions to obtain a license before substantively altering the manuscript. >> More
September 28, 2004 | Daily Variety | Embargo Violates Free Speech
A coalition of publishers and authors filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to overturn Treasury Dept. rules restricting American publishers from working with authors in countries under a trade embargo, such as Cuba and Iran. >> More
September 27, 2004 | Star-Ledger | Suit pits free speech vs. 'trading with the enemy'
A geology journal spiked a paper by Iranian scientists on methods for predicting earthquakes. The reason: Fear of whopping fines and jail time for "trading with the enemy." >> More
September 27, 2004 | Chronicle of Higher Education | Publishers will sue U.S. government
A group of publishers' and authors' associations expects to file suit today against the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces regulations against countries under a U.S. trade embargo. >> More
September 19, 2004 | Edward Hirsch | Poet's Choice
September 19, 2004 | Edward Hirsch | Poet's Choice PEN believes that it is urgently necessary to review the USA Patriot Act and the full range of antiterrorism laws and orders enacted since Sept. 11, 2001. >> More
September 13, 2004 | Francine Prose | Reading Is a Prime Defense Against Assault on Our Rights
September 13, 2004 | Francine Prose | Reading Is a Prime Defense Against Assault on Our Rights The word "patriotism" is increasingly being used as a bludgeon with which to attack critics of the shameful war in Iraq, as a gag to silence dissenters accused of being unpatriotic. >> More
August 29, 2004 | Ariel Dorfman | Liberty's Language
August 29, 2004 | Ariel Dorfman | Liberty's Language As the ultimate guardians of language and its complexity, writers have always felt the need to deal with the great crises of their time. >> More
August 10, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Terrorism, Intellectual Freedom, and the Patriot Act
August 10, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Terrorism, Intellectual Freedom, and the Patriot Act Will we become our enemy or not? Will we become repressive as our enemy is repressive? Will we become intolerant as our enemy is intolerant? Or will we not? >> More
August 10, 2004 | Le Monde | American artists in a campaign against 'liberticidal' laws
In an initiative led by Salman Rushdie, writers challenge the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorist legislation adopted in the wake of September 11, 2001. >> More
August 10, 2004 | Paul Auster | We're in the Process of Losing Our Country
August 10, 2004 | Paul Auster | We're in the Process of Losing Our Country The PEN Club has rules that prohibit support for a political candidate, however, it's an organization that has always fought for freedom of expression in different countries, and, as Salman Rushdie reminded us during that meeting, it's important not to ignore a problem when it knocks on our own door. >> More
August 9, 2004 | Liberation | Rushdie mobilizes American writers against Bush
For fifteen years, Salman Rushdie had to hide for having written what some refused to read. These days, he wishes to denounce another form of censorship in his adopted country, the United States. >> More
August 9, 2004 | Newsday | The FBI Shouldn't Be Reading Over Our Shoulders
Last month, a majority of the members of the House of Representatives voted to deny funding for FBI searches of bookstore and library records under Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act. >> More
July 9, 2004 | Washington Post | House GOP defends Patriot Act
The House rejected a proposed change to the USA Patriot Act that would have barred the Justice Department from searching bookstore and library records. >> More
May 11, 2004 | Luc Sante | Torturers and Terrorists
May 11, 2004 | Luc Sante | Torturers and Terrorists So now we think we know who took some of the photographs at Abu Ghraib. The works attributed to Specialist Jeremy Sivits are fated to remain among the indelible images of our time. >> More
March 9, 2004 | Boston Globe | Reading Over Your Shoulder
"It's the most naked form of intrusion into one's life -- to get into a person's mind, what they are reading, what their literary interest is," said Ciaran McCabe. >> More
March 8, 2004 | Tony Kushner | Homophobia's Reach
March 8, 2004 | Tony Kushner | Homophobia's Reach American democracy provides inspiration by example (rather than by military occupation) to people all over the world who are seeking justice and freedom. >> More
February 28, 2004 | New York Times | Treasury Dept. is warning publishers of the perils of editing
Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do to their prose. The federal government has recently weighed in on the same issue — literally. >> More
February 23, 2004 | Portsmouth Herald | Bookstores join to fight Patriot Act
A local bookstore owner is hoping that a national petition drive will encourage lawmakers to amend a section of the USA Patriot Act that allows the FBI to view the buying and borrowing histories of customers. >> More
February 22, 2004 | The Oregonian | A Day and a Deed for Gorgeous
I hate to break in on your Washington's Birthday celebration, especially if you've just gotten to the cherry pie part. >> More
February 22, 2004 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Take action to amend 215's abuses
Lost in the current furor over missing National Guard duty and misread intelligence was President Bush's demand last month that Congress extend the U.S.A. Patriot Act. >> More
February 21, 2004 | Los Angeles Times | U.S. Embargo Extended to Editing Articles
For U.S. publishers, changing so much as a comma in an author's work can be more than a delicate process. >> More
February 18, 2004 | People's Weekly World | Petition drive against Patriot Act
This isn’t about stripping law enforcement of the power to investigate terrorism. It’s about confidence that our reading choices aren’t being monitored by the government. >> More
February 18, 2004 | Boston Globe | Book Groups Seek Privacy
Three book organizations kicked off a national signature drive yesterday to amend a federal law that allows the FBI to inspect library and bookstore records surreptitiously. >> More
February 17, 2004 | Publisher's Weekly| Patriot Act petition
Groups seeking to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act launched a campaign today to obtain one million signatures in support of legislation that would protect the privacy of bookstore and library records that were eliminated by the act. >> More
2003 and earlier
November 22, 2003 | Resolution on the United States of America
From the Assembly of Delegates of International PEN, meeting at its 69th Congress in Mexico City, Mexico, November 22–28, 2003. >> More
November 28, 1999 | New York Times | 'Doing Time'
We've seen it all already, and it has been real enough, the cellblock riots, the black majority, what goes on inside prison walls. >> More
May 3, 1989 | Larry McMurtry testimony
May 3, 1989 | Larry McMurtry testimony Here in the United States we have heard our leaders and representatives in Congress and the White House decry terrorism and proclaim our dedication as a nation to the principle of free expression. But do we honor and protect this principle as vigorously as we should? >> More
PRESS ARCHIVE: BY SUBJECT

>> China Campaign
>> Free expression
>> Google Print Library Project
>> Hurricane Katrina
>> Ideological exclusion
>> Liu Xiaobo
>> OFAC lawsuit
>> PEN award winners
>> Press freedom
>> U.S. torture policies
>> USA Patriot Act
>> Writers in Iraq
>> World Voices Festival


China Campaign
March 5, 2010 | Shanghaiist | Liao Yiwu stopped from attending German literary festival
On Monday, outspoken Chinese poet Liao Yiwu had barely boarded his flight from Chengdu to Cologne when he was ordered to get off. >> More
March 2, 2010 | New York Times | For 13th Time, Critic of China’s Government Is Barred From Leaving
BEIJING — Chinese security agents in Sichuan Province detained Liao Yiwu, a prominent author and critic of the government, as he prepared to fly Monday to a literary festival in Germany, human rights activists said. >> More
February 11, 2010 | VOA News | Chinese Court Rejects Dissident's Appeal of 11-Year Sentence
A Chinese appeals court has upheld an 11-year prison sentence for prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo (shahw-boh), who has convicted of subversion. >> More
February 11, 2010 | CNN | Chinese court upholds sentence for prominent dissident
Beijing, China (CNN) -- A Chinese court upheld an 11-year prison term for a prominent dissident sentenced for subversion late last year, a court official said Thursday. >> More
February 2, 2010 | Reuters India | China warns against Nobel prize for leading dissident
China's Foreign Ministry warned on Tuesday against giving a Nobel Peace Prize to leading jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, a nomination made by the U.S. chapter of rights group International Pen. >> More
February 2, 2010 | New York Times | Chinese, Russian Activists Nominated for Nobel
Candidates for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize include a Russian human rights group, a Chinese dissident and an inanimate object: the Internet, people who made the nominations said Tuesday. >> More
January 17, 2010 | The Guardian | Why is China so Terrified of Dissent?
There is an expression in China: "Kill the chicken before the monkey." Target the weak and vulnerable, it means, to frighten the strong and many. >> More
January 15, 2010 | Telegraph | Microsoft pledges to stay in China despite Google's threat to leave
Microsoft has no plans to pull out of China, its chief executive Steven Ballmer has confirmed, dashing hopes that the software giant would support its rival Google in its stand against Chinese censorship of the internet. >> More
January 15, 2010 | Financial Times | Dissident Detained in Southern China
HONG KONG, Jan 15 - Chinese dissident Zhao Shiying has been detained by police in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, a possible sign that a crackdown against signatories of Charter 08 is continuing, say activists and rights groups.>> More
January 15, 2010 | TVNZ | Dissidents Detained in China
Chinese dissident Zhao Shiying has been detained by police in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, a possible sign that a crackdown against signatories of Charter 08 is continuing, say activists and rights groups. >> More
January 15, 2010 | RNW | Dissident Detained by Police in Southern China
Chinese dissident Zhao Shiying has been detained by police in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, a possible sign that a crackdown against signatories of Charter 08 is continuing, say activists and rights groups. >> More
January 13, 2010 | Spero News | Hong Kong, Songs and Vigils for Liu Xiaobo
Hong Kong - The parliament of Hong Kong (LegCo) has this morning rejected a motion to "Free Liu Xiaobo”. The motion was presented by the Catholic Parliamentary Fred Li Wah-ming, a member of the Democratic Party and supported by other pro-democratic legislators.>> More
January 05, 2010 | WNYC | Writers Rally to Protest Imprisonment of Chinese Dissident
Writers from the PEN American Center, an advocacy group that works to defend free expression around the world, staged a New Year’s Eve rally this morning on the steps of the New York Public Library. >> More
January 04, 2010 | The Daily Beast | Writers Rally for Liu Xiaobo
On New Year’s Eve, Don DeLillo, Edward Albee, A.M. Homes, and others gathered to demand the release of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo, sentenced to 11 years in prison. >> More
January 04, 2010 | Guardian | Leading Authors Demonstrate Against Jailing of Liu Xiaobo
Acclaimed US authors including EL Doctorow, Don DeLillo and Edward Albee gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library on New Year's Eve to protest against the imprisonment of Chinese writer and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo. >> More
January 03, 2010 | CNN | Calls to Free Dissident
CNN's Anjali Rao talks with Kwame Appiah of the Pen American Center about the jailing of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. (Video) >> More
December 31, 2009 | CBS News | Writers Rally for Jailed Chinese Dissident
Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Edward Albee and A.M. Holmes were among the writers who gathered Thursday to call on China to release writer and activist Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power" in his writings. >> More
December 31, 2009 | Bloomberg | Doctorow, Albee Protest 11-Year Sentence for Chinese Writer Liu
Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Edward Albee, E.L. Doctorow and other prominent writers demanded the release of jailed Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo at a rally today in front of New York’s main public library. >> More
December 26, 2009 | Wall Street Journal | Chinese Activist Liu Gets 11 Years
BEIJING -- A Chinese court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, China's most prominent dissident, to 11 years in prison for criticizing the government, an unusually long sentence that rights activists say suggests other activists will also face harsh punishment. >> More
December 25, 2009 | MediaBistro | Chinese Author Liu Xiabo Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison
Following a trial that lasted less than three hours, a Beijing court has sentenced Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo to 11-years in prison and and "two years' deprivation of political rights" for subversion in his writings. >> More
December 22, 2009 | CNN | Chinese Dissident Faces Trial Despite Calls for His Release
Beijing, China (CNN) -- Prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was arrested in 1989 for his role in the Tiananmen Square protest, faces trial Wednesday for allegedly "inciting subversion" in a more recent case. >> More
December 10, 2009:
We Are Willing to Share Responsibility with Liu Xiaobo
teaser
November 15, 2009 | The Daily Beast | PEN Alert: Free Liu Xiabo
PEN American Center has written a letter to President Obama asking him to help pressure the Chinese authorities to release a Tiananmen dissident, writer, and activist. Read more about the case. >> More
November 9, 2009:
PEN Calls on President Obama to Stand Up for Free Expression in China
November 9, 2009: PEN Calls on President Obama to Stand Up for Free Expression in China On the eve of Barack Obama’s first state visit to China, PEN American Center has sent a letter urging the president to intervene on behalf of the more than 40 writers imprisoned in that country because of their work.
October 2, 2009 | The Huffington Post | Writer Liu Xiaobo Release from China Demanded By Congress
New York City, October 2, 2009--Calling yesterday's near-unanimous vote approving a Congressional resolution demanding the immediate release of critic and writer Liu Xiaobo "a critical show of solidarity from the U.S. government at a critical time," PEN American Center urged the Obama administration to press for the prominent dissident's release in advance of the president's visit to Beijing on November. >> More
October 1, 2009 | The Christian Science Monitor | On its 60th anniversary, China is still...
Washington - The People's Republic of China celebrated its 60th anniversary today with massive military parades, fireworks, and concerts throughout the country. In mid-November, President Obama will make his first presidential visit to Beijing, marking the 30th anniversary of Chinese-US relations with an agenda likely to include the environment, security, and the global economy. >> More
June 25, 2009 | AsiaOne | US House Speaker slams China arrest of democracy advocate
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged worldwide condemnation of China's decision to arrest prominent pro-democracy dissident Liu Xiaobo. >> More
June 25, 2009 | Voice of America | China Rejects International Concern for Jailed Dissident
The Chinese government is rejecting international concerns over jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, saying the case is strictly an internal affair of China. >> More
June 23, 2009 | Toronto Star | Learning the limits of "freedom" in China
Lawyer, rights groups cry foul as police hold writer at secret location without charge since December. >> More
May 28, 2009 | The New York Review of Books | The Poet in an Unknown Prison
The following remarks were sent to PEN by Liu's wife, Liu Xia, and read at the award ceremony in New York on April 28. >> More
May 1, 2009 | The New York Times | A Manifesto on Freedom Sets China's Persecution Machinery
Behind the west Beijing apartment building where Liu Xia keeps a fifth-floor flat, the police have built a guardhouse. >> More
April 28, 2009 | Times Online | The Internet is God's Present to China
On the day he receives a human rights award, a Chinese dissident reveals his gratitude to the web. >> More
April 23, 2009 | Huffington Post | 5 Reasons Why What Happens To Arrested Chinese Writer Liu Matters
Next week, PEN American Center will award one of its highest honors, the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese intellectual and literary critic who played a pivotal role in Tiananmen Square. >> More
April 22, 2009 | Shanghaiist | Wife of Chinese dissident asks Obama for help
The case of jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo flared up in the American media this weekend, after Liu's wife Liu Xia published a Washington Post editorial asking President Barack Obama to help get him released from jail.
April 20, 2009 | Taipei Times | US activists back Chinese dissident
US human rights activists have launched a campaign to free prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, whose case has become a cause celebre outside China.
December 23, 2008 | The New York Times | Petition Urges China to Free Dissident
BEIJING — More than 160 prominent writers, scholars and human rights advocates outside mainland China have signed an open letter to President Hu Jintao asking him to release a well-known intellectual and dissident who was detained this month. The letter was posted on the Internet on Tuesday.
July 17, 2008 | NY Review of Books | Please release the Chinese writers in prison
We are concerned that, despite official pledges to respect essential rights in this Olympic year, Chinese authorities continue to harass and detain writers in violation of their right to freedom of expression. >> More
July 10, 2008 | Washington Post | China's Silencing Season
Huang, 45, is among dozens of Chinese writers and lawyers who have been convicted, detained, placed under house arrest, tailed or otherwise harassed as part of China's broad crackdown on dissent in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing next month. >> More
July 11, 2008 | USA Today | Chinese activists fear Olympic 'holidays'
Li Fangping, a defense lawyer for two of China's well-known human rights cases, expects to be under 24-hour police surveillance during next month's Olympic Games. >> More
July 8, 2008 | Bloomberg | China Silences Critics as Olympics Near, Report Says
One month before the Aug. 8 start of the Summer Olympics in Beijing, PEN, an international writers' group that monitors human rights abuses, accused the Chinese government of waging a "grinding and relentless campaign to jail or silence prominent dissident voices." >> More
July 8, 2008 | CBC News | PEN gives China failing grade for free expression
Conditions for both international and Chinese journalists have deteriorated between December 2007 and June 2008, according to a report released Tuesday by PEN Canada, the PEN American Centre, and the Independent Chinese PEN Centre. >> More
July 7, 2008 | National Post |China breaching media freedoms before Olympics
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July 7, 2008 | Reuters | China media clamps slammed a month before Olympics
A month before the Olympics, China continues to severely breach its pledge to allow full media freedoms, harassing and restricting foreign journalists in Tibet and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on Monday. >> More
July 7, 2008 | Globe and Mail | The real score on freedom of expression in China
fter additional arrests and releases, there are now 44 writers and journalists in Chinese prisons – one month before opening day in Beijing. >> More
June 26, 2008 | New York Times | Activists Warned on Olympic Protests
In the latest sign of efforts to prevent dissent during the Beijing Olympics, political activists in Shanghai say they have been warned against expressing their opinions, speaking with foreigners or visiting Beijing until after the Games. >> More
June 15, 2008 | Reuters | Concern over detentions in China quake zone
Two human rights groups expressed concern on Sunday over the fate of Huang Qi, a Chinese activist who friends fear was detained for offering support to families of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake. >> More
June 7, 2008 | AP| Outcast writer seeks stories in China's quake zone
The people Liao Yiwu interviews exist on the fringe of Chinese society, and more than a few live closely with death. The mortician. The grave robber. The professional mourner, who now can't be found. >> More
May 28, 2008 | USA Today | China activists harassed for speaking on human rights
Chinese activists said Tuesday that they were harassed by police and warned not to talk to U.S. officials visiting China for the first human rights talks between the two countries in six years. >> More
May 7, 2008 | Reuters | China dissident writer faces subversion charge
A dissident Chinese writer in police custody faces trial for inciting subversion as part of an apparent government crackdown on dissent ahead of the Beijing Olympics, three writers' associations said. >> More
May 2, 2008 | Metro New York | Writers take on China Censorship
The campaign was launched last December by the PEN American Center, which believes these 39 were jailed for exercising their right to speak and write freely — an act guaranteed under Chinese law. >> More
May 1, 2008 | PRI | Writers petition China
A group of writers delivered a letter today to China's United Nations mission in New York. The letter urged the release of 39 Chinese writers and journalists believed to be imprisoned in China. >> More
May 1, 2008 | VOA | Writers Demand China Release Imprisoned Writers
Members of the PEN American Center say the petition is simply asking the Chinese government to live up to the pledge Beijing made to improve its human rights record when the nation secured the Olympic Games in 2001. >> More
May 1, 2008 | PEN Petitions Chinese Government to Release Imprisoned Writers | Publishers Weekly

At a press conference in New York this morning PEN announced its intent to petition the Chinese government to free 39 Chinese writers who have been jailed for exercising their right to speak and write freely. >> More

April 30, 2008 | NPR | Chinese Dissident Honored for Writings
Yang Tongyan is serving a 12-year sentence in a Chinese prison for publishing anti-government articles on the Internet. Larry Siems, director of the PEN American Center, explains why Yang is being honored with the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. >> More
April 27, 2008 | The New York Times | Laura Berg’s Letter
The PEN American Center, the literary organization committed to free expression, is honoring an American most people in this country have never read or even heard of: Laura Berg. >> More
April 25, 2008 | New York Times | PEN Petitions China
With its annual World Voices Festival of International Literature coming to town next week, PEN American Center, the human rights organization for writers, is focusing on China as the Beijing Olympic Games approach. >> More
April 12, 2008 | Washington Post | Jailed Chinese Writer To Receive PEN Award
Yang Tongyan, a Chinese writer serving a 12-year prison term for posting anti-government articles on the Internet, will receive this year's PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. >> More
April 12, 2008 | New York Times | Writer Jailed in China Wins a PEN Award
Yang Tongyan, right, a Chinese writer serving a 12-year prison term for posting antigovernment articles on the Internet, will receive the 22nd annual PEN Freedom to Write Award, Bloomberg News reported. >> More
April 8, 2008 | Reuters | Protest poem "relay" tackles China on human rights
Canada will take part in a virtual demonstration against China's human rights policies on Wednesday via a poem "relay" organized by an international writers' association as tensions brew worldwide ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games. >> More
April 8, 2008 | CNW | Tracking Olympic Torch Relay, PEN Poem Relay lands in North America
Raising awareness of rights violations in China through poetry, the PEN Poem Relay is crossing the globe, touching down in North America on April 9. >> More
April 7, 2008 | Spiegel | 'If the Games Fail, Human Rights Will Suffer'
With the Olympic Games rapidly approaching, more attention than ever is being focused on China's handling of protests in Tibet and on the state of human rights in the Communist country. >> More
March 22, 2008 | The Epoch Times | Will Chinese Regime Silence Media's Coverage?
The Chinese regime sought first to silence the protest of the monks in Lhasa with a violent crackdown on March 14 that reminded the world of Tiananmen Square in 1989. >> More
March 17, 2008 | Wei Jingsheng | No time to close our eyes
If there has been any lesson in all my years as an activist for democracy and human rights in China, it is that only international pressure coupled with internal pressure will yield solid results. >> More
Free expression
January 18, 2010 | Free Word | SRI LANKA: Journalist J. S. Tissainayagam Freed
International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee welcomes the release on bail of Tamil journalist Jayaprakash Sittampalam (J. S.) Tissainayagam, who was detained in March 2008 and sentenced to twenty years in prison for his critical writings. >> More
January 17, 2010 | The Guardian | Why is China so Terrified of Dissent?
There is an expression in China: "Kill the chicken before the monkey." Target the weak and vulnerable, it means, to frighten the strong and many. >> More
January 05, 2010 | WNYC | Writers Rally to Protest Imprisonment of Chinese Dissident
Writers from the PEN American Center, an advocacy group that works to defend free expression around the world, staged a New Year’s Eve rally this morning on the steps of the New York Public Library. >> More
November 9, 2009:
PEN Calls on President Obama to Stand Up for Free Expression in China
November 9, 2009: PEN Calls on President Obama to Stand Up for Free Expression in China On the eve of Barack Obama’s first state visit to China, PEN American Center has sent a letter urging the president to intervene on behalf of the more than 40 writers imprisoned in that country because of their work.
September 11, 2009 | The New York Times | Pen Makes Appeal to Yale Press
PEN American Center has joined the controversy over a decision by Yale University Press to excise images of Muhammad from one of its new books and urged Yale to reconsider. PEN, the literary and human rights organization, sent a letter to Yale’s president and board calling the decision “out of character with Yale, its reputation and its leadership position.” >> More
July 15, 2009 | Carnegie Endowment | Iran: A Conversation About the Elections, Protests, and Future
As the political firestorm unleashed by Iran’s June 12 presidential elections appears far from over, Carnegie co-hosted a conversation on Iran with PEN American Center, The New York Review of Books, and 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center. >> More
June 23, 2009 | Toronto Star | Learning the limits of "freedom" in China
Lawyer, rights groups cry foul as police hold writer at secret location without charge since December. >> More
April 29, 2009 | Publishers Weekly | Free Speech Orgs Criticize Dismissal of Wisconsin Library Board
Four members of a library board in West Bend, Wis., were dismissed last week for refusing to remove controversial books from the library’s young adult section—and yesterday, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Association of American Publishers and PEN American Center criticized the firings.
April 28, 2009 | Times Online | The Internet is God's Present to China
On the day he receives a human rights award, a Chinese dissident reveals his gratitude to the web. >> More
December 23, 2008 | The New York Times | Petition Urges China to Free Dissident
BEIJING — More than 160 prominent writers, scholars and human rights advocates outside mainland China have signed an open letter to President Hu Jintao asking him to release a well-known intellectual and dissident who was detained this month. The letter was posted on the Internet on Tuesday.
October 18, 2008 | Reuters | China urged to extend media freedoms domestically
China should extend media freedoms it now offers foreign reporters to domestic journalists too, rights groups said, but added that the signs were not encouraging this would happen. >> More
October 17, 2008:
Beyond the Olympics: The Freedom to Write in China, After the Spotlight
On October 17, 2007, the day that temporary regulations for foreign journalists expire in China, PEN American Center, PEN Canada, and the Independent Chinese PEN Center issued the following assessment on the state of freedom of expression in China before, during, and after the Olympic Games.
July 17, 2008 | NY Review of Books | Please release the Chinese writers in prison
We are concerned that, despite official pledges to respect essential rights in this Olympic year, Chinese authorities continue to harass and detain writers in violation of their right to freedom of expression. >> More
July 8, 2008:
Failing to Deliver: An Olympic-Year Report Card on Free Expression in China
On July 8, 2008, one month before the Olympic Games open in Beijing, PEN American Center, PEN Canada, and the Independent Chinese PEN Center issued the following progress report on the state of freedom of expression in China.
July 8, 2008 | CBC News | PEN gives China failing grade for free expression
Conditions for both international and Chinese journalists have deteriorated between December 2007 and June 2008, according to a report released Tuesday by PEN Canada, the PEN American Centre, and the Independent Chinese PEN Centre. >> More
April 9, 2008:
Billy Collins Reads Shi Tao’s “June” as Part of Free Expression Poem Relay
April 9, 2008:Billy Collins Reads Shi Tao’s “June” as Part of Free Expression Poem Relay As the Olympic torch reached the U.S., PEN American Center today released a recording of former U.S. Poet Laureate and PEN American Center Vice President Billy Collins reading imprisoned Chinese writer Shi Tao’s poem “June,” a meditation on the 1989 protests and massacre.
July 8, 2008 | Publishers Weekly | PEN: China Has Failed to Deliver Freedom of Expression
Three international PEN centers have determined that the climate for freedom of expression in China has measurably deteriorated over the past year. Centers in the U.S., Canada and China released a “report card” one month before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games, titled "Failing to Deliver: An Olympic-Year Report Card on Free Expression in China."
July 7, 2008 | National Post |China breaching media freedoms before Olympics
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July 7, 2008 | Globe and Mail | The real score on freedom of expression in China
fter additional arrests and releases, there are now 44 writers and journalists in Chinese prisons – one month before opening day in Beijing. >> More
April 7, 2008 | Bloomberg | Horsley, U.K.'s Incorrigible Memoirist, Finds Advocates at PEN
Sebastian Horsley, the British bad- boy memoirist accused of moral turpitude and possible fashion crimes, hopes to participate next month in the PEN American Center's World Voices Festival in New York. >> More
April 2, 2008 | New York Times | PEN Rallies Behind Ousted Author
When it comes to publicity, being denied entry into the United States may be the best thing that ever happened to Sebastian Horsley, right, unless you count being hung on a cross in the Philippines. >> More
April 1, 2008 | FOXNews | Writers' Group Appeals U.S. Exclusion of UK Author
An advocacy group for writers appealed to U.S. officials Monday to review the exclusion of a British author whose most recent book chronicles his years of heavy drug use and frequent visits to prostitutes. >> More
November 11, 2007 | Ana Menendez | Jailed Writers Can't Be Silenced
November 11, 2007 | Ana Menendez | Jailed Writers Can't Be Silenced Writing, like other compulsions, can be dangerous for your health. It can bring fame and fortune, which is bad enough -- Pen a hard truth and you also face calumny, imprisonment and death. >> More
October 22, 2007 | New York Times | Say What You Like, Just Don't Say It Here
The American commitment to free speech is the most robust in the world. But these days that tolerance stops at the border. >> More
September 26, 2007 | New York Times | Free Speech Groups Sue Over Visa Denial
The government is increasingly using secret evidence allowed under new antiterrorism laws to prevent certain critics from entering the United States, according to a group of civil rights and academic organizations. >> More
October 30, 2006 | Glamour Magazine | Global Diary: Mexico
When I first heard about Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho, I knew I wanted to meet her. This remarkable woman created an international uproar last year after she wrote a book claiming that local power brokers were tied to a pedophile ring in the popular resort town of Cancun. But she, and I, had a problem: Too many people wanted Lydia dead. >> More
September 30, 2006 | New York Times | Turkish Writers Say Efforts to Stifle Speech May Backfire
Not a week after a court dropped the case against a best-selling Turkish novelist, another well-known writer was charged with the same crime, one of the most ambiguous and contentious here, that of “insulting Turkishness.” >> More
September 28, 2006 | Ron Chernow | National Press Club Remarks
September 28, 2006 | Ron Chernow | National Press Club Remarks I think we should always be alarmed when there’s a growing imbalance betwen what the government knows about its citizens, and what those citizens, in turn, know about their government. >> Read more
September 21, 2006 | The Guardian | Acquittal for Turkish novelist
Shafak told Guardian Unlimited that she was "very happy with the outcome", but still concerned about threats to freedom of expression in Turkey. >> More
September 15, 2006 | New York Times | Turkey, a Touchy Critic, Plans to Put a Novel on Trial
“Article 301 has been used by ultranationalists as a weapon to silence political voices in Turkey,” Ms. Shafak said. “In that sense, my case is not unusual. But for the first time, they are trying to bring a novel into court. The way they are trying to penetrate the domain of art and literature is quite new, and quite disturbing.” >> More
August 15, 2006 | New York Times | Who’s Afraid of Shirin Ebadi?
Shirin Ebadi, the lawyer who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, has been threatened with arrest unless she closes the Center for Protecting Human Rights in Tehran. >> More
August 30, 2006 | Akbar Ganji | 'We Don't Want War'
August 30, 2006 | Akbar Ganji | 'We Don't Want War' Renowned Iranian investigative journalist and dissident discusses with Democracy Now! why he recently declined an invitation to the meet with President Bush in the White House. >> More
August 1, 2006 | Akbar Ganji | Money Can't Buy Us Democracy
August 1, 2006 | Akbar Ganji | Money Can't Buy Us Democracy The battle between freedom and despotism in Iran remains unresolved for deeply internal reasons. It is, I am convinced, a problem with profound historical and cultural roots. >> More
July 13, 2006 | New York Sun | Novelist May Be Jailed for a Character's Remarks
Elif Shafak will appear in the country's seventh high criminal court on charges of violating Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code. >> More
May 25, 2006 | Orhan Pamuk | Freedom to Write
May 25, 2006 | Orhan Pamuk | Freedom to Write To respect the humanity and religious beliefs of minorities is not to suggest that we should limit freedom of thought on their behalf. >> More
April 24, 2006 | The New Yorker | The Land of Turkmenbashi
Of the fifteen states of the former Soviet empire, Turkmenistan, just north of Iran, is the one that has turned out to be a cruel blend of Kim Jong Il’s North Korea and L. Frank Baum’s Oz. >> More
April 19, 2006 | USA Today | PEN recognizes the write to be free
Authors tend to complain. About their publishers or editors. About not selling enough books or getting enough attention. But every spring, PEN, an international group of writers, holds a literary gala that puts the everyday concerns of authors in perspective. >> More
October 12, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Test for East and West
October 12, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Test for East and West The work room of the writer Orhan Pamuk looks out over the Bosphorus, that fabled strip of water which, depending on how you see these things, separates or unites—or, perhaps, separates and unites—the worlds of Europe and Asia. >> More
February 7, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Democracy Is No Polite Tea Party
February 7, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Democracy Is No Polite Tea Party I recently returned from a trip to Britain, where I discovered, to my consternation, that the government is proposing a law to ban what it is calling "incitement to religious hatred." >> More
September 30, 2004 | New York Sun | Trade groups sue Treasury on Freedom of Speech issues
Two publishing trade organizations have jointly filed suit against the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control in a New York federal court. >> More
September 27, 2004 | Star-Ledger | Suit pits free speech vs. 'trading with the enemy'
A geology journal spiked a paper by Iranian scientists on methods for predicting earthquakes. The reason: Fear of whopping fines and jail time for "trading with the enemy." >> More
March 8, 2004 | Tony Kushner | Homophobia's Reach
March 8, 2004 | Tony Kushner | Homophobia's Reach American democracy provides inspiration by example (rather than by military occupation) to people all over the world who are seeking justice and freedom. >> More
May 3, 1989 | Larry McMurtry testimony
May 3, 1989 | Larry McMurtry testimony Here in the United States we have heard our leaders and representatives in Congress and the White House decry terrorism and proclaim our dedication as a nation to the principle of free expression. But do we honor and protect this principle as vigorously as we should? >> More
Google Print Library Project
October 22, 2005 | Washington Post | Riches We Must Share...
The digitization of information is a profound gesture that holds open our doors. Limiting access to information is tantamount to limiting the opportunities of our citizens. >> More
October 22, 2005 | Washington Post | ...But Not at Writers' Expense
Google says writers and publishers should be happy about this: It will increase their exposure and maybe lead to more book sales. That's a devil's bargain. >> More
Hurricane Katrina
February 24, 2006 | Fatima Shaik | Masking New Orleans
February 24, 2006 | Fatima Shaik | Masking New Orleans On Mardi Gras Day, the nation will be looking to New Orleans to see if we are wearing masks. >> More
December 22, 2005 | Fatima Shaik | Christmas in New Orleans
December 22, 2005 | Fatima Shaik | Christmas in New Orleans Picture Santa’s sled with a rolling kitchenette attached and you have some idea about the size of a FEMA trailer. >> More
September 19, 2005 | Bell Gale Chevigny | A Shock to the System
September 19, 2005 | Bell Gale Chevigny | A Shock to the System When their government turned its back on them, survivors of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake were galvanized into political action. Katrina survivors may take a similar lesson from today's disaster. >> More
September 11, 2005 | Alice Sebold | Living With the Dead
September 11, 2005 | Alice Sebold | Living With the Dead These tragedies, it's worth remembering, grant us an opportunity to understand what is perhaps our finest raw material: our humanity. >> More
September 4, 2005 | Richard Ford | Elegy for My City
September 4, 2005 | Richard Ford | Elegy for My City I write in the place of others, today, for the ones who can't be found. And there is a blunt ending now, one we always feared, never wished for, do not deserve. >> More
September 4, 2005 | Anne Rice | Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
September 4, 2005 | Anne Rice | Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. >> More
Ideological exclusion
October 2, 2009 | Publishers Weekly | PEN Protests German Publisher’s Exclusion from U.S.
PEN American Center yesterday issued a letter to Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, urging them to review the decision to revoke the visa of German publisher and PEN member Karl-Dietrich Wolff, who was denied entry to the U.S. on September 25. PEN said not allowing Wolff into the country “sends the wrong message about our country’s commitment to the First Amendment.” >> More
July 17, 2009 | New York Times | Court Reverses Ruling Dealing With Visa of Muslim Scholar
A federal appeals court in Manhattan on Friday reversed a lower-court ruling that had allowed the government to bar a prominent Muslim scholar from entering the United States on the ground that he had contributed to a charity that had connections to terrorism. >> More
March 18, 2009 | IFEX | PEN Presses for End to Ideological Exclusion...
One week before an Appeals Court hears its challenge to the exclusion of Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan from the U.S., PEN joined 59 other organizations in sending a letter to members of the Obama administration urging an end to the practice of refusing visas to foreign writers, intellectuals, and activists based on their ideas and political views. >> More
April 15, 2008 | Huffington Post | British Author Barred for 'Moral Turpitude'
Something we don't hear about enough from the mainstream media, thanks to the cat fight that has become the Democratic Party nomination process, is not only what we are doing to our detainees, who's giving the thumbs-up to do it, but also this administration's quiet jihad against foreign scholars, and writers. >> More
April 14, 2008 | New York Post | Battling over a master of filth
Sure, flamboyant British artist Sebastian Horsley has done loads of drugs, had sex with hookers, worked as a prostitute himself and was once voluntarily nailed to a cross—but, according to PEN, the prestigious New York literary group, the US government is dead wrong in banning him from coming here to promote his new X-rated autobiography. >> More
April 7, 2008 | Bloomberg | Horsley, U.K.'s Incorrigible Memoirist, Finds Advocates at PEN
Sebastian Horsley, the British bad- boy memoirist accused of moral turpitude and possible fashion crimes, hopes to participate next month in the PEN American Center's World Voices Festival in New York. >> More
April 2, 2008 | New York Times | PEN Rallies Behind Ousted Author
When it comes to publicity, being denied entry into the United States may be the best thing that ever happened to Sebastian Horsley, right, unless you count being hung on a cross in the Philippines. >> More
October 22, 2007 | New York Times | Say What You Like, Just Don't Say It Here
The American commitment to free speech is the most robust in the world. But these days that tolerance stops at the border. >> More
September 30, 2007 | San Francisco Chronicle | Promoting democracy while suppressing ideas
This spring, the U.S. State Department sent a message to the Association of American Publishers announcing new procedures for expediting business visas for U.S. companies' foreign employees, customers and potential clients traveling to the United States. >> More
September 26, 2007 | New York Times | Free Speech Groups Sue Over Visa Denial
The government is increasingly using secret evidence allowed under new antiterrorism laws to prevent certain critics from entering the United States, according to a group of civil rights and academic organizations. >> More
October 9, 2006 | George Packer | Keep Out
October 9, 2006 | George Packer | Keep Out State and Homeland Security have interpreted the language of the Patriot Act so loosely that, according to official documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, anyone who is guilty of “irresponsible expressions of opinion” can be refused entry to the United States. >> More
October 1, 2006 | Tariq Ramadan | Why I'm Banned in the USA
Unfortunately, the U.S. government's paranoia has evolved far beyond a fear of particular individuals and taken on a much more insidious form: the fear of ideas. >> More
August 25, 2006 | Chronicle of Higher Education | Government Declines to Appeal Ruling
In a case considered a bellwether of United States policy toward foreign scholars, the government has decided not to appeal a court ruling ordering it to either issue a visa to Tariq Ramadan or provide good reasons for not doing so. >> More
June 26, 2006 | Publishers Weekly | PEN Fights Good Fight for Int'l Writer
When prominent Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan was denied a U.S. visa because of statements he'd made against the U.S. government, the PEN American Center joined the crusade supporting the scholar. >> More
June 26, 2006 | The Progressive | Tariq Ramadan Wins One
While denying that Ramadan was excluded on ideological grounds, Jones said, “Professor Ramadan, tomorrow, could endorse or espouse terrorism.” >> More
June 24, 2006 | New York Times | Judge Orders U.S. to Decide If Muslim Scholar Can Enter
A federal judge in New York yesterday ordered the Bush administration to decide by September whether to grant an entry visa to a prominent Muslim scholar. >> More
May 11, 2006 | Christian Science Monitor | Uncle Sam Doesn't Want You
Why have prominent foreign scholars had their visas to speak or teach in this country denied or revoked? Many, including the academic institutions who invited them, are baffled. >> More
May 2, 2006 | IPS News | A Chill in the Air
"Thanks in large part to the Patriot Act, our government is once again excluding foreign writers and scholars from the country simply because of their political beliefs." >> More
April 14, 2006 | New York Times | Hearing For Muslim Barred by U.S.
Government lawyers clarified some mysteries yesterday and deepened others in the case of Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim scholar and leading European theologian of Islam who has been barred by the Bush administration from traveling to the United States since July 2004. >> More
April 1, 2008 | FOXNews | Writers' Group Appeals U.S. Exclusion of UK Author
An advocacy group for writers appealed to U.S. officials Monday to review the exclusion of a British author whose most recent book chronicles his years of heavy drug use and frequent visits to prostitutes. >> More
February 21, 2006 | Christian Century | Religion scholars join suit vs. Patriot Act
The ACLU and three other groups, including the large American Academy of Religion, have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to strike down a USA Patriot Act clause they say is applied wrongly to stifle academic debate. >> More
January 26, 2006 | New York Times | Lawsuit Filed in Support of Muslim Scholar Barred From U.S.
Citing the case of a prominent Muslim scholar who has been barred from the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit yesterday seeking to strike down a clause of the USA Patriot Act that bars foreigners who endorse terrorism from entering to this country. >> More
November 25, 2005 | Christian Science Monitor | When US bars its door to foreign scholars
Concern is mounting that the US government is using antiterror laws--namely, the Patriot Act--to revive a now-discredited practice common during the cold war: the prevention of foreign intellectuals who are critical of administration policies from entering the country and sharing their views with Americans. >> More
November 11, 2005 | Inside Higher Ed | New Challenge on Visa Denials
To many academics, one of the most fearsome parts of the Patriot Act is section 411, which allows the government to deny visas to prominent individuals from abroad who have used their positions to endorse terrorism. >> More
Liu Xiaobo
February 11, 2010 | CNN | Chinese court upholds sentence for prominent dissident
Beijing, China (CNN) -- A Chinese court upheld an 11-year prison term for a prominent dissident sentenced for subversion late last year, a court official said Thursday. >> More
February 11, 2010 | VOA News | Chinese Court Rejects Dissident's Appeal of 11-Year Sentence
A Chinese appeals court has upheld an 11-year prison sentence for prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo (shahw-boh), who has convicted of subversion. >> More
February 2, 2010 | Reuters India | China warns against Nobel prize for leading dissident
China's Foreign Ministry warned on Tuesday against giving a Nobel Peace Prize to leading jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, a nomination made by the U.S. chapter of rights group International Pen. >> More
February 2, 2010 | New York Times | Chinese, Russian Activists Nominated for Nobel
Candidates for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize include a Russian human rights group, a Chinese dissident and an inanimate object: the Internet, people who made the nominations said Tuesday. >> More
January 13, 2010 | Spero News | Hong Kong, Songs and Vigils for Liu Xiaobo
Hong Kong - The parliament of Hong Kong (LegCo) has this morning rejected a motion to "Free Liu Xiaobo”. The motion was presented by the Catholic Parliamentary Fred Li Wah-ming, a member of the Democratic Party and supported by other pro-democratic legislators.>> More
January 05, 2010 | WNYC | Writers Rally to Protest Imprisonment of Chinese Dissident
Writers from the PEN American Center, an advocacy group that works to defend free expression around the world, staged a New Year’s Eve rally this morning on the steps of the New York Public Library. >> More
January 04, 2010 | The Daily Beast | Writers Rally for Liu Xiaobo
On New Year’s Eve, Don DeLillo, Edward Albee, A.M. Homes, and others gathered to demand the release of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo, sentenced to 11 years in prison. >> More
January 04, 2010 | Guardian | Leading Authors Demonstrate Against Jailing of Liu Xiaobo
Acclaimed US authors including EL Doctorow, Don DeLillo and Edward Albee gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library on New Year's Eve to protest against the imprisonment of Chinese writer and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo. >> More
January 03, 2010 | CNN | Calls to Free Dissident
CNN's Anjali Rao talks with Kwame Appiah of the Pen American Center about the jailing of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. (Video) >> More
December 31, 2009 | CBS News | Writers Rally for Jailed Chinese Dissident
Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Edward Albee and A.M. Holmes were among the writers who gathered Thursday to call on China to release writer and activist Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power" in his writings. >> More
December 31, 2009 | Bloomberg | Doctorow, Albee Protest 11-Year Sentence for Chinese Writer Liu
Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Edward Albee, E.L. Doctorow and other prominent writers demanded the release of jailed Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo at a rally today in front of New York’s main public library. >> More
December 26, 2009 | Wall Street Journal | Chinese Activist Liu Gets 11 Years
BEIJING -- A Chinese court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, China's most prominent dissident, to 11 years in prison for criticizing the government, an unusually long sentence that rights activists say suggests other activists will also face harsh punishment. >> More
December 25, 2009 | MediaBistro | Chinese Author Liu Xiabo Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison
Following a trial that lasted less than three hours, a Beijing court has sentenced Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo to 11-years in prison and and "two years' deprivation of political rights" for subversion in his writings. >> More
December 22, 2009 | CNN | Chinese Dissident Faces Trial Despite Calls for His Release
Beijing, China (CNN) -- Prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was arrested in 1989 for his role in the Tiananmen Square protest, faces trial Wednesday for allegedly "inciting subversion" in a more recent case. >> More
December 18, 2009 | New York Times | Words On Trial
In the late spring of 1989, a few weeks before the killings of June 4, a slight, almost nerdish figure appeared in Tiananmen Square and began exhorting the students to concentrate on democracy rather than the deposition of China’s top leaders and an end to corruption. >> More
December 10, 2009:
We Are Willing to Share Responsibility with Liu Xiaobo
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December 09, 2009 | New York Times | A Great Chinese Writer, Behind Bars for One Year
One of the most courageous and visionary of modern Chinese writers is Liu Xiaobo, 53. He’s a strong supporter of democracy and something of a firebrand, as well as an awesome thinker and writer, and so he has been a frequent visitor to Chinese jail cells. >> More
November 15, 2009 | The Daily Beast | PEN Alert: Free Liu Xiabo
PEN American Center has written a letter to President Obama asking him to help pressure the Chinese authorities to release a Tiananmen dissident, writer, and activist. Read more about the case. >> More
October 2, 2009 | The Huffington Post | Writer Liu Xiaobo Release from China Demanded By Congress
New York City, October 2, 2009--Calling yesterday's near-unanimous vote approving a Congressional resolution demanding the immediate release of critic and writer Liu Xiaobo "a critical show of solidarity from the U.S. government at a critical time," PEN American Center urged the Obama administration to press for the prominent dissident's release in advance of the president's visit to Beijing on November. >> More
June 25, 2009 | AsiaOne | US House Speaker slams China arrest of democracy advocate
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged worldwide condemnation of China's decision to arrest prominent pro-democracy dissident Liu Xiaobo. >> More
June 25, 2009 | Voice of America | China Rejects International Concern for Jailed Dissident
The Chinese government is rejecting international concerns over jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, saying the case is strictly an internal affair of China. >> More
June 23, 2009 | Toronto Star | Learning the limits of "freedom" in China
Lawyer, rights groups cry foul as police hold writer at secret location without charge since December. >> More
May 28, 2009 | The New York Review of Books | The Poet in an Unknown Prison
The following remarks were sent to PEN by Liu's wife, Liu Xia, and read at the award ceremony in New York on April 28. >> More
May 1, 2009 | The New York Times | A Manifesto on Freedom Sets China's Persecution Machinery
Behind the west Beijing apartment building where Liu Xia keeps a fifth-floor flat, the police have built a guardhouse. >> More
April 28, 2009 | Times Online | The Internet is God's Present to China
On the day he receives a human rights award, a Chinese dissident reveals his gratitude to the web. >> More
April 23, 2009 | Huffington Post | 5 Reasons Why What Happens To Arrested Chinese Writer Liu Matters
Next week, PEN American Center will award one of its highest honors, the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese intellectual and literary critic who played a pivotal role in Tiananmen Square. >> More
OFAC lawsuit
December 16, 2004 | Miami Herald | Firms allowed to print Cuban works
Academic publishers claimed victory on Wednesday when the U.S. government relaxed rules about printing works from Cuba and other blacklisted countries in response to a lawsuit filed in September. >> More
December 26, 2004 | Pioneer Press | Ruminating on a troubled future
The government is going to tell us what we are going to read and can't read. If these authors are really enemies, wouldn't it be better to understand them instead of keeping their books out? >> More
December 11, 2004 | Washington Post | Will her voice ever be heard?
Ever wonder what happened to the State Department's chief of propaganda? The head of public diplomacy was supposed to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim street. >> More
December 9, 2004 | Hartford Courant | Lauded Writer Given Parole
The state has granted parole to a woman who won a $25,000 writing award with the help of best-selling author Wally Lamb. >> More
December 2, 2004 | Boston Globe | Iran Inanity
Orwellian bureaucratic rules meant to impose sanctions on undemocratic or unfriendly regimes should not be used to silence democrats who oppose those regimes. >> More
November 16, 2004 | New York Times | Bound But Gagged
I learned, sometimes in the face of tragedy, that the written word is often the most powerful—and only—tool that we have to protect those who are powerless. >> More
November 12, 2004 | Chronicle of Higher Education | Illegal Trafficking
Most American scholars remain blissfully ignorant of the risks of international collaboration. Yet simply publishing in the United States an article co-written by a colleague from Cuba, Iran, or Sudan could subject the editor or publisher to criminal liability and fines of up to $500,000 or 10 years in prison. >> More
November 1, 2004 | Wall Street Journal | Nobel Laureate sues U.S.
When Ms. Ebadi sought to publish her memoirs in the U.S., she was startled to discover that doing so would be illegal, under a trade embargo intended to punish repressive governments such as the regime in Tehran that once sent her to jail. >> More
October 9, 2004 | Chicago Tribute | Right to Publish
The rule should be simple: The free exchange of ideas in books and other papers is not trading with the enemy. >> More
September 30, 2004 | New York Sun | Trade groups sue Treasury on Freedom of Speech issues
Two publishing trade organizations have jointly filed suit against the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control in a New York federal court. >> More
September 30, 2004 | Baltimore Sun | Curb the Thought
The Treasury Department's bone-headed decision not to allow U.S. publishers to edit the works of writers from trade-sanctioned countries has ended up in court. >> More
September 29, 2004 | New York Times | Ending Editorial Oversight at the Treasury Department
No matter how the Treasury Department's ruling is framed, denying editorial cooperation of this kind deprives us as much as it does the sanctioned countries. >> More
September 28, 2004 | New York Times | Treasury Dept. Being Sued for Curbs on Editing
The regulations, meant to keep Americans from trading with enemies, require anyone who publishes material from a country under trade sanctions to obtain a license before substantively altering the manuscript. >> More
September 28, 2004 | Daily Variety | Embargo Violates Free Speech
A coalition of publishers and authors filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to overturn Treasury Dept. rules restricting American publishers from working with authors in countries under a trade embargo, such as Cuba and Iran. >> More
September 27, 2004 | Chronicle of Higher Education | Publishers will sue U.S. government
A group of publishers' and authors' associations expects to file suit today against the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces regulations against countries under a U.S. trade embargo. >> More
September 27, 2004 | Star-Ledger | Suit pits free speech vs. 'trading with the enemy'
A geology journal spiked a paper by Iranian scientists on methods for predicting earthquakes. The reason: Fear of whopping fines and jail time for "trading with the enemy." >> More
February 28, 2004 | New York Times | Treasury Dept. is warning publishers of the perils of editing
Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do to their prose. The federal government has recently weighed in on the same issue — literally. >> More
February 21, 2004 | Los Angeles Times | U.S. Embargo Extended to Editing Articles
For U.S. publishers, changing so much as a comma in an author's work can be more than a delicate process. >> More
PEN award winners
September 3, 2009 | MediaBistro | 2009 PEN Beyond Margins Award Winners Announced
Today the PEN American Center announced the winners of the 2009 PEN Beyond Margins Award. Honored for writing "outstanding books by writers of color," three authors will receive $1,000 and be featured at a December celebration. >> More
April 9, 2009 | The New York Times | O. Henry Prize, PEN Announce Partnership
In an era of economic uncertainty and consolidation, even the short story could use a little additional support: the Anchor Books imprint of Random House said that it had partnered with the literary and human rights organization the PEN American Center and that it would rename its annual “O. Henry Prize Stories” collection the “PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.” >> More
June 4, 2008 | Miami Herald | It's same old repression in a new package
As shoppers in Havana mobbed electronic stores looking for DVD players, writer and independent journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez was quietly returned to Kilo 7 prison in Camaguey, Cuba. >> More
May 30, 2008 | Bloomberg| Cubans Send Sick Dissident Writer Gonzalez to 'Subhuman' Jail
Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, a gravely ill dissident Cuban writer, was secretly returned three weeks ago from a Havana military hospital to solitary confinement in Kilo 7, a backwater prison, his mother confirmed today. >> More
April 30, 2008 | NPR | Chinese Dissident Honored for Writings
Yang Tongyan is serving a 12-year sentence in a Chinese prison for publishing anti-government articles on the Internet. Larry Siems, director of the PEN American Center, explains why Yang is being honored with the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. >> More
April 16, 2008 | Epoch Times | Jailed Epoch Times Contributor to Receive Award
A Chinese dissident writer and Epoch Times contributor has been awarded the prestigious 2008 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. >> More
April 12, 2008 | New York Times | Writer Jailed in China Wins a PEN Award
Yang Tongyan, right, a Chinese writer serving a 12-year prison term for posting antigovernment articles on the Internet, will receive the 22nd annual PEN Freedom to Write Award, Bloomberg News reported. >> More
April 12, 2008 | Washington Post | Jailed Chinese Writer To Receive PEN Award
Yang Tongyan, a Chinese writer serving a 12-year prison term for posting anti-government articles on the Internet, will receive this year's PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. >> More
April 11, 2008 | Herald Tribune | Toni Morrison to be honored at PEN gala
Best-selling author Toni Morrison will accept the PEN/Borders Literary Service Award at the 2008 PEN Literary Gala, which takes place April 28 at New York City's American Museum of Natural History, with journalist Christiane Amanpour serving as emcee. >> More
March 10, 2008 | Poets & Writers | Toi Derricotte, A.M. Homes, and Peter Straub To Receive Awards
Congratulations to A.M. Homes, who will receive the Barnes & Noble Writers For Writers Award, in recognition of her service to PEN and other organizations. Homes currently chairs the PEN Emergency Writers Fund and serves on the PEN Board.
October 24, 2007 | Bloomberg | Abused Cuban Journalist, Spirit Strong, Worsening in Hospital
Imprisoned Cuban journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, hospitalized last month, faces medical procedures today that family members said could further imperil his already fragile health. >> More
September 18, 2007 | Bloomberg | Jailed Cuban Writer, Extremely Ill, Hospitalized; May Be Freed
In the early morning hours of Sept. 14, jailed Cuban journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez was transferred across the island nation from Kilo 7, a prison in Camaguey, to Carlos J. Finlay military hospital in Havana.
June 28, 2007 | Bloomberg | Cuba Keeps Writer in Jail: No Medicine for Hernandez Gonzalez
"Mi hijo esta muy mal. Muy mal." Even on the speakerphone from Miami, Blanca Gonzalez's voice is unmistakably choked with emotion. "My son is doing badly. Very badly," she says. "He said that from there he will leave dead." >> More
May 2, 2007 | The New York Sun | PEN Honors Cuban Dissident
An independent journalist, Normando Hernández González, was awarded the 2007 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on Monday night. He could not travel to receive the award at the PEN American Center's Literary Gala because he languishes in prison in Cuba for his role in starting an independent newspaper and a school for journalists there. >> More
February 26, 2007 | Washington Post | For Roth, a 3rd PEN/Faulkner Win
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation will announce today that Philip Roth has won its 2007 award for fiction for his novel Everyman—making Roth the first writer to receive the award three times. >> More
February 4, 2007 | New York Times | Hungry Heart
Staring at a map of her new country, Nguyen wondered about New York and Los Angeles: “I had no idea what such cities were like, but I was convinced people were happier out on the coasts, living in a nexus between so much land and water. Gazing at the crisscrossing lines of Manhattan or the blue vastness of the oceans, I would feel something I could only describe as missingness.” >> More
June 15, 2006 | Nevada News | Assistant English professor’s debut work wins PEN award
Christopher Coake, an assistant English professor, received the prestigious PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers for his debut work, "We’re in Trouble," a collection of dramatic short stories, on May 22. >> More
May 21, 2006 | The Wichita Eagle | WSU prof 'fills gap' with translation
Baldridge's training in philosophy prepared him well for the works of French poet and intellectual Michel Deguy. >> More
May 3, 2006 | Turkish Daily News | Philip Roth wins $20,000 PEN award
Philip Roth, whose many novels include "Portnoy's Complaint" and "The Plot Against America," has received the PEN/Nabokov Award for lifetime achievement, a prize worth $20,000. >> More
May 3, 2006 | New York Sun | A Dark & Powerful Force From Down South
If you haven't heard of Roberto Bolano, you will soon. The Chilean author, who died of liver failure in 2003, was the subject of a major panel discussion at last week's PEN festival. >> More
April 20, 2006 | New York Times | In Surprise, PEN Honoree Attends Gala
A novelist from Turkmenistan whose books have been banned and who has been under house arrest for two years became the first writer in 20 years to personally accept a Freedom to Write award from PEN American Center. >> More
April 19, 2006 | USA Today | PEN recognizes the write to be free
Authors tend to complain. About their publishers or editors. About not selling enough books or getting enough attention. But every spring, PEN, an international group of writers, holds a literary gala that puts the everyday concerns of authors in perspective. >> More
May 17, 2005 | Joan Airoldi | Librarian's brush with FBI shapes her view of the USA Patriot Act
On June 8, 2004, an FBI agent stopped at the Deming branch of the Whatcom County Library System in northwest Washington and requested a list of the people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. We said no. >> More
April 21, 2005 | Seattle Times | Deming's defender of words
The biggest battles, the ones that Really Count, always seem to start in the smallest places. >> More
December 9, 2004 | Hartford Courant | Lauded Writer Given Parole
The state has granted parole to a woman who won a $25,000 writing award with the help of best-selling author Wally Lamb. >> More
November 28, 1999 | New York Times | 'Doing Time'
We've seen it all already, and it has been real enough, the cellblock riots, the black majority, what goes on inside prison walls. >> More
Press freedom
January 18, 2010 | Free Word | SRI LANKA: Journalist J. S. Tissainayagam Freed
International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee welcomes the release on bail of Tamil journalist Jayaprakash Sittampalam (J. S.) Tissainayagam, who was detained in March 2008 and sentenced to twenty years in prison for his critical writings. >> More
July 17, 2009 | Newsweek| Global Writers and Filmmakers Call for Bahari's Release
Well-known figures from more than 60 countries, from Noam Chomsky to Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, ask Tehran to free the Canadian-Iranian journalist. >> More
October 29, 2009 | Committee to Protect Journalists | Natalya Estemirova case must be solved...
Your Excellency, On the day PEN American Center and the Committee to Protect Journalists join together for a public tribute to slain independent journalist and human rights defender Natalya Estemirova, we call on you to ensure that both her assassins and those who sent them to her doorstep are brought to justice. >> More
October 23, 2009| Human Rights Watch| Bearing Witness in Chechnya: The Legacy of Natalia Estemirova
PEN American Center - one of the world's oldest literary and human rights organizations - joins forces with the Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), CUNY's School of Journalism, and WITNESS to pay tribute to Natalia Estemirova, the award-winning human rights activist and journalist murdered on July 15, 2009, while she was working on extremely sensitive cases of human rights abuses in Chechnya. >> More
July 29, 2009 | Los Angeles Times | Detained Iranian Journalist Getting All the Press
Iran's government announced Tuesday that it would release 140 prisoners detained during the political unrest that wracked the country last month, but one now-notable name was not on the list: Maziar Bahari remains in Tehran's Evin prison. Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist for Newsweek, filmmaker, playwright, author and artist, has been getting a lot of attention since his June 21 arrest. >> More
April 16, 2008 | Bloomberg | Condemned Afghan Journalist Wins Right to Appeal Death Sentence
A young Afghan journalist, sentenced to death in January for spreading feminist criticism of Islam, has been granted an appeal, according to one of the international organizations monitoring his case. >> More
March 22, 2008 | The Epoch Times | Will Chinese Regime Silence Media's Coverage?
The Chinese regime sought first to silence the protest of the monks in Lhasa with a violent crackdown on March 14 that reminded the world of Tiananmen Square in 1989. >> More
October 24, 2007 | Bloomberg | Abused Cuban Journalist, Spirit Strong, Worsening in Hospital
Imprisoned Cuban journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, hospitalized last month, faces medical procedures today that family members said could further imperil his already fragile health. >> More
January 22, 2007 | Elif Shafak | The Murder of Hrant Dink
Few people can inspire a whole nation in their lifetime, fewer still with their death. Hrant Dink did both. He was a prominent journalist, the editor of the Armenian weekly Agos, an outspoken intellectual, a peace activist, a true citizen of Istanbul and a dear friend. >> More
January 17, 2007 | The Progressive | Journalist on Hot Seat in Court-Martial Case
Sarah Olson was on a big story, and now she has become a part of it. The freelance journalist was one of the first reporters to cover the story of Lt. Ehren Watada, who is facing a court martial for publicly refusing to deploy to Iraq. Watada has denounced the war as “illegal and unjust.” >> More
U.S. torture policies
October 16, 2009 | Bombsite | RECKONING WITH TORTURE: MEMOS AND TESTIMONIES FROM THE “WAR ON TERROR”
Eight years ago, September 11th transformed New York City into a crowded hive of anxiety. Since then, there have been innumerable changes in our lives. The obvious ones include soldiers patrolling streets, bridges, tunnels, transportation hubs, and the now commonplace presence of folding tables and police officers prepared to check bags at subway stations. But there was much more going on than we knew...>> More
October 15, 2009 | New York Review of Books | Reading American Torture
On October 13, a sold-out crowd at New York’s Cooper Union listened for an hour and a half to readings by such prominent writers as Art Spiegelman, Don DeLillo, Susanna Moore, Eve Ensler, A.M. Holmes, George Saunders, and Paul Auster. Convened by PEN American Center and the ACLU, these writers came together to read not their own work, but the words of... >> More
September 24, 2006 | Edwidge Danticat | Does It Work?
September 24, 2006 | Edwidge Danticat | Does It Work? For many who remember what it means to live under a dictatorial regime, a regime in which citizens must leave work or school to witness public executions, torture is not just an individual affliction but a communal one. >> More
September 24, 2006 | Ariel Dorfman | Are We Really So Fearful?
September 24, 2006 | Ariel Dorfman | Are We Really So Fearful? It still haunts me, the first time—it was in Chile, in October of 1973—that I met someone who had been tortured. >> More
August 18, 2006 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The shadow world of a 'dirty war'
August 18, 2006 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The shadow world of a 'dirty war' The law provides us with a rational, commonly ratified code of morality. In subverting this shared deference to law, the Bush administration, with its zeal for secrecy, intimidation and shadowy alliances, endangers us all. >> More
October 6, 2005 | New York Times | Senate Moves to Protect Military Prisoners Despite Veto Threat
In a sharp rebuke to the White House, the Senate overwhelmingly agreed Wednesday to regulate the detention, interrogation and treatment of prisoners held by the American military. >> More
January 6, 2005 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The Torturer General
January 6, 2005 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The Torturer General It seems surreal: The president's nominee for the highest legal position in the land is a proponent of torture. >> More
October 8, 2005 | New York Times | Binding the Hands of Torturers
When the Senate voted this week to bring America's chain of military prison camps under the rule of law, President Bush threatened a veto. >> More
September 10, 2005 | New York Times | Abu Ghraib Unresolved
Ever since the world learned of the illegal detentions and brutal behavior at American military prisons, the Bush administration has bet it could outlast public outrage with phony investigations and stonewalling. >> More
August 2, 2005 | Gerald Posner | The Kingdom and the Power
August 2, 2005 | Gerald Posner | The Kingdom and the Power In May, Ali al-Domeini, a leading poet, and two scholars were given long prison sentences for having circulated a letter they had written to Crown Prince Abdullah calling for political, economic and social reforms. >> More
January 6, 2005 | Mark Danner | We Are All Torturers Now
January 6, 2005 | Mark Danner | We Are All Torturers Now At least since Watergate, Americans have come to take for granted a certain story line of scandal, in which revelation is followed by investigation, adjudication and expiation. >> More
November 24, 2004 | Edwidge Danticat | A Very Haitian Story
November 24, 2004 | Edwidge Danticat | A Very Haitian Story When the international and combined Haitian forces left Bel-Air, gang members came to my uncle's home, told him that 15 of their friends had been killed and said he had to pay for the burials or die. >> More
May 11, 2004 | Luc Sante | Torturers and Terrorists
May 11, 2004 | Luc Sante | Torturers and Terrorists So now we think we know who took some of the photographs at Abu Ghraib. The works attributed to Specialist Jeremy Sivits are fated to remain among the indelible images of our time. >> More
USA Patriot Act
August 18, 2006 | New York Times | Ruling for the Law
Ever since President Bush was forced to admit that he was spying on Americans’ telephone calls and e-mail without warrants, his lawyers have fought to keep challenges to the program out of the courts. >> More
November 6, 2005 | New York Times | Lawmakers call for limits on F.B.I. power
"We should not ever give up freedom on the basis of fear, and any freedom that we give up should be limited in time and limited in scope," Senator Tom Coburn. >> More
November 6, 2005 | Washington Post | The FBI's Secret Scrutiny
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. >> More
November 19, 2004 | Contra Costa Times | At the library
In case you have ever wondered about the power of words, writers and books, this amazing situation may answer your question. >> More
September 29, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Campaign for Reader Privacy press conference
September 29, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Campaign for Reader Privacy press conference Why does the government need the power to search records of people who are not suspected of being terrorists or agents of a foreign government? >> More
September 19, 2004 | Edward Hirsch | Poet's Choice
September 19, 2004 | Edward Hirsch | Poet's Choice PEN believes that it is urgently necessary to review the USA Patriot Act and the full range of antiterrorism laws and orders enacted since Sept. 11, 2001. >> More
September 13, 2004 | Francine Prose | Reading Is a Prime Defense Against Assault on Our Rights
September 13, 2004 | Francine Prose | Reading Is a Prime Defense Against Assault on Our Rights The word "patriotism" is increasingly being used as a bludgeon with which to attack critics of the shameful war in Iraq, as a gag to silence dissenters accused of being unpatriotic. >> More
August 29, 2004 | Ariel Dorfman | Liberty's Language
August 29, 2004 | Ariel Dorfman | Liberty's Language As the ultimate guardians of language and its complexity, writers have always felt the need to deal with the great crises of their time. >> More
August 10, 2004 | Le Monde | American artists in a campaign against 'liberticidal' laws
In an initiative led by Salman Rushdie, writers challenge the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorist legislation adopted in the wake of September 11, 2001. >> More
August 10, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Terrorism, Intellectual Freedom, and the Patriot Act
August 10, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Terrorism, Intellectual Freedom, and the Patriot Act Will we become our enemy or not? Will we become repressive as our enemy is repressive? Will we become intolerant as our enemy is intolerant? Or will we not? >> More
August 10, 2004 | Paul Auster | We're in the Process of Losing Our Country
August 10, 2004 | Paul Auster | We're in the Process of Losing Our Country The PEN Club has rules that prohibit support for a political candidate, however, it's an organization that has always fought for freedom of expression in different countries, and, as Salman Rushdie reminded us during that meeting, it's important not to ignore a problem when it knocks on our own door. >> More
August 9, 2004 | Newsday | The FBI Shouldn't Be Reading Over Our Shoulders
Last month, a majority of the members of the House of Representatives voted to deny funding for FBI searches of bookstore and library records under Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act. >> More
August 9, 2004 | Liberation | Rushdie mobilizes American writers against Bush
For fifteen years, Salman Rushdie had to hide for having written what some refused to read. These days, he wishes to denounce another form of censorship in his adopted country, the United States. >> More
July 9, 2004 | Washington Post | House GOP defends Patriot Act
The House rejected a proposed change to the USA Patriot Act that would have barred the Justice Department from searching bookstore and library records. >> More
February 23, 2004 | Portsmouth Herald | Bookstores join to fight Patriot Act
A local bookstore owner is hoping that a national petition drive will encourage lawmakers to amend a section of the USA Patriot Act that allows the FBI to view the buying and borrowing histories of customers. >> More
February 22, 2004 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Take action to amend 215's abuses
Lost in the current furor over missing National Guard duty and misread intelligence was President Bush's demand last month that Congress extend the U.S.A. Patriot Act. >> More
February 22, 2004 | The Oregonian | A Day and a Deed for Gorgeous
I hate to break in on your Washington's Birthday celebration, especially if you've just gotten to the cherry pie part. >> More
February 18, 2004 | People's Weekly World | Petition drive against Patriot Act
This isn’t about stripping law enforcement of the power to investigate terrorism. It’s about confidence that our reading choices aren’t being monitored by the government. >> More
February 18, 2004 | Boston Globe | Book Groups Seek Privacy
Three book organizations kicked off a national signature drive yesterday to amend a federal law that allows the FBI to inspect library and bookstore records surreptitiously. >> More
February 17, 2004 | Publisher's Weekly| Patriot Act petition
Groups seeking to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act launched a campaign today to obtain one million signatures in support of legislation that would protect the privacy of bookstore and library records that were eliminated by the act. >> More
March 9, 2004 | Boston Globe | Reading Over Your Shoulder
"It's the most naked form of intrusion into one's life -- to get into a person's mind, what they are reading, what their literary interest is," said Ciaran McCabe. >> More
November 22, 2003 | Resolution on the United States of America
From the Assembly of Delegates of International PEN, meeting at its 69th Congress in Mexico City, Mexico, November 22–28, 2003. >> More
Writers in Iraq
July 14, 2008 | Bloomberg | Iraqi Refugee Survives Day to Day, Helps Others Settle in U.S.
With the help of the International Rescue Committee, the PEN American Center and other human rights organizations, Ali and his family were relocated to Atlanta in December. >> More
July 19, 2007 | Haroon Siddiqui | Bush can do more for refugees
There is George W. Bush and there's Larry Siems. Siems is among those Americans, like Senator Ted Kennedy, who want their president to take moral responsibility for creating the refugee crisis in Iraq. >> More
March 26, 2007 | George Packer | Betrayed
March 26, 2007 | George Packer | Betrayed America’s failure to understand, trust, and protect its closest friends in Iraq is a small drama that contains the larger history of defeat. >> More
January 18, 2007 | Wall Street Journal | Lost in Translation
Since the start of the war, 257 Iraqi interpreters have been killed, says Titan Corp. of San Diego, which just completed a five-year, $4.6 billion Pentagon contract to provide linguists to U.S. forces. Most of those killed were assassinated while on home leave, the company says. >> More
January 1, 2007 | New York Times | Few Iraqis Are Gaining U.S. Sanctuary
With thousands of Iraqis desperately fleeing this country every day, advocates for refugees, and even some American officials, say there is an urgent need to allow more Iraqi refugees into the United States. >> More
November 27, 2006 | George Packer | Save Whomever We Can
November 27, 2006 | George Packer | Save Whomever We Can Recently, I asked my friend what he would do if U.S. forces began to withdraw from Baghdad. Osman, an utterly secular Sunni who despises the religious extremists of both sects, replied, "I would have to be protected by Al Qaeda." >> More
November 20, 2006 | Waddah Ali | Fear of Freedom
History is an idea to you; to us it is our life. I’m a typical Iraqi. I love my country. I love my food, my way of life, I love the carpets, the mud of the Euphrates, Iraqi poetry, everything: this is my culture. >> More
November 20, 2006 | Omar Ghanim Fathi | Republic of Dreams
In Saddam Hussein’s time, in order to be accepted you had to tell the government that you were a Baathist; you had to tell people in your social environment that you were religious; and in fact you had to be somewhere in the middle. >> More
November 20, 2006 | Basim Mardan | Lost After Translation
The Marines paid me $150 a month, which was better than the $2 I was making as a librarian. So I didn’t see weapons in their hands, I saw flowers, and I took them all as friends. I loved what I was doing because I thought it was a good thing for my country. >> More
World Voices Festival
June 11, 2009 | New York Review of Books | The Crisis and How to Deal with It
Following are excerpts from a symposium on the economic crisis presented by The New York Review of Books and PEN World Voices at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 30. The participants were former senator Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, and Robin Wells, with Jeff Madrick as moderator. >> More
May 12, 2009 | Village Voice | Lit Seen: James Hannaham's God Says No
James Hannaham and I decide to meet one rainy Friday afternoon in a polished, low-lit midtown hotel, where the men's bathroom is supposed to be great for cruising. Just off the first-floor lobby, the restroom in question is about the size of a Lower East Side bedroom and has mirrors on all four sides, conspicuously immodest urinals, and a private stall with a sturdy lock. >> More
May 7, 2009 | Publishers Weekly | The Evolution Revolution
Two hundred years after Charles Darwin began a discussion of human evolution, people are still talking. The discussion, and specifically the issue of teaching evolution to children, continued Sunday at a PEN World Voices panel held at powerHouse Books in Brooklyn. >> More
May 4, 2009 | Time Out New York | PEN World Voices: Americans seduce foreigners
A couple of interesting PEN World Festival events happened over the weekend: Salman Rushdie and Paul Auster were at Instituto Cervantes (along with Michael Ondaatje and Richard Ford) to drink bubbly and celebrate the progress of the festival, which ends today. Auster, after encouraging folk to drink and flirt, read a section from Lorca’s Poet in New York. >> More
April 30, 2009 | Los Angeles Times | PEN's World Voices Festival underway
The annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature kicked off Monday and will continue until Sunday. Those of us who aren't in New York for the panels, readings and parties can keep up, luckily, with the many blogs that are following the proceedings. >> More
April 29, 2009 | The New York Observer | Literati Gathers Around a Big Dinosaur at PEN Literary Gala
The American Museum of Natural History was occupied by writers, editors, and agents on Tuesday night, April 28, for the PEN Foundation’s annual black-tie gala. >> More
April 29, 2009 | The Daily Beast | Letting Their Voices Be Heard
As PEN’s World Voices Literary Festival kicked off with a gala at the Museum of Natural History, the literati came out to honor E.L. Doctorow and support the rights of writers. >> More
April 29, 2009 | The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC | Nawal El Saadawi
For more than 50 years, novelist, psychiatrist and activist Dr. Nawal El Saadawi has written books that focus on identity, sexuality and the legal status of women in the Arab world. She continued working despite threats to her life, imprisonment and, ultimately exile from her native Egypt. >> More
April 28, 2009 | NY Daily News | PEN fest offers plenty of Latino voices
This week’s PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature will provide an excellent opportunity for New Yorkers to get a feel of how vast the "Latino" book world is. "It’s about fighting stereotypes," author Eduardo Lago said some of the festival events taking place at Instituto Cervantes, which he presides. >> More
April 27, 2009 | Time Out New York | PEN World Voices Festival: Adam Gopnik apologizes to France...
Originally set to kick off today, PEN added an extra tidbit to its program last week: a talk between Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker and Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, the 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. >> More
April 26, 2009 | LaNew-Yorkaise | “Every Word Contains the World”
In her introduction to Friday night’s festival-opening event, Caro Llewellyn, Director of PEN World Voices: The New York Festival of International Literature, feted the festival’s fifth birthday with a retelling of its roots. >> More
April 18, 2009 | The Village Voice | The Mighty Pen
From graphic novelists Neil Gaiman and Adrian Tomine, to downtown icons Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, to literary stars Edwidge Danticat and Colm Toibin, to Hollywood star/Columbia MFA fiction student James Franco, the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature is overloaded with great events for its fifth anniversary. >> More
March 27, 2009| Poets & Writers| 2009 PEN World Voices to Host 160 International Writers and Artists
The fifth annual PEN Word Voices festival will kick off in New York City on April 28, featuring sixty events with writers from forty countries, PEN American Center announced on Wednesday. >> More
March 25, 2009 | The New York Times | Other Voices, Other Worlds
The lineup for this year’s PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature was announced today at an event held in the beautiful courtyard of the Instituto Cervantes in New York. >> More
March 21, 2008 | Village Voice | PEN World Voices Festival
The PEN American Center kicked off its annual World Voices Festival Thursday at a luncheon aboard the ocean liner Queen Mary 2. >> More
March 16, 2008 | New York Times | Waves Through the Book World
Cunard, the British cruise company, has joined with the PEN American Center, the writers’ group, to create a book club on the high seas. >> More
June 3, 2007 | Roxana Robinson | The Novelist and the Curious Cabbie
June 3, 2007 | Roxana Robinson | The Novelist and the Curious Cabbie I was standing on the curb, uptown, my hand raised for a cab. It was evening, and the sky was clear and the air cool. I had plenty of time, and I was happy: I was on my way to an international literary festival. >> More
May 13, 2007 | David Grossman | Writing in the Dark
At times I feel as if I am digging up people from the ice in which reality enshrouded them, but maybe, more than anything else, it is myself that I am now digging up. >> More
April 24, 2007 | New York Times | For Writers, a Voice Beyond the Page
Nadine Gordimer, the South African novelist and Nobel Prize winner, said writing could be political almost by default. “Everyone is influenced by the framework in which they live, so that politics comes into everything. It’s not expressed by us in a didactic way, but comes through our creation of characters who are indeed made up of the kind of world and the kind of reactions that people have toward that world.” >> More
March 21, 2007 | Washington Post | PEN Event Features Rushdie, Steve Martin
Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, Salman Rushdie and Steve Martin will be among the many writers and performers featured at the third annual PEN World Voices festival, to be held April 24-29 in settings throughout New York City. >> More
October 12, 2006 | New York Times | Turkish writer wins Nobel Prize in Literature
Orhan Pamuk, whose uncommon lyrical gifts and uncompromising politics have brought him acclaim worldwide and prosecution at home, won the Nobel literature prize for his works dealing with the symbols of clashing cultures. >> More
February 14, 2007 | New York Times | No Rest for a Feminist Fighting Radical Islam
Ayaan Hirsi Ali came to the attention of the wider world in an extraordinary way. In 2004 a Muslim fanatic, after shooting the filmmaker Theo van Gogh dead on an Amsterdam street, pinned a letter to Mr. van Gogh’s chest with a knife. Addressed to Ms. Hirsi Ali, the letter called for holy war against the West and, more specifically, for her death. >> More
May 25, 2006 | Orhan Pamuk | Freedom to Write
May 25, 2006 | Orhan Pamuk | Freedom to Write To respect the humanity and religious beliefs of minorities is not to suggest that we should limit freedom of thought on their behalf. >> More
May 14, 2006 | Philadelphia Inquirer Shriek it, chant it: 'Howl' turns 50
On stage in the New School auditorium, moderator and literary biographer Robert Polito described Howl to hundreds in the audience as a "grim but funny effort" that, like much enduring literature, beguiles through ambiguity. >> More
May 11, 2006 | Christian Science Monitor | Uncle Sam Doesn't Want You
Why have prominent foreign scholars had their visas to speak or teach in this country denied or revoked? Many, including the academic institutions who invited them, are baffled. >> More
May 3, 2006 | New York Sun | An Enlightenment Fundamentalist
Like an increasing number of immigrants in the West who refuse to have a "victim" label pinned to their lapels, the Dutch-Somalian actress, author, and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali represents something of a problem for liberal intellectuals. >> More
May 3, 2006 | New York Sun | A Dark & Powerful Force From Down South
If you haven't heard of Roberto Bolano, you will soon. The Chilean author, who died of liver failure in 2003, was the subject of a major panel discussion at last week's PEN festival. >> More
May 3, 2006 | Philadelphia Inquirer | A literary world out there, but not for U.S.
By both force of numbers and abundant literary talent, however, many of the writers challenged America's stinginess toward other literary cultures, what Italian writer Roberto Calasso called "a lethal mixture of provincialism and imperialism. >> More
May 2, 2006 | Literary Voices, Loud & Clear | New York Sun
The Argentinean-born author Rodrigo Fresan spoke at a BenettonTalk Young Writers Series on Saturday, as part of the PEN World Voices Festival. >> More
May 2006 | Jhumpa Lahiri interview | KGB Bar Lit
May 2006 | Jhumpa Lahiri interview | KGB Bar Lit I don't see myself playing a political role, but I do think that it's vital to contribute to a broader understanding of freedom of expression and of cultural tolerance and exchange, especially given the extent to which these values have been threatened in recent times. >> More
April 29, 2006 | Jeanette Winterson | Her Word
April 29, 2006 | Jeanette Winterson | Her Word We are creating a world divided between faith-based fanaticism on the one hand, and amoral science and global market “logic” on the other. >> More
April 28, 2006 | EITB | Basque writer Bernardo Atxaga at NY Festival of International Lit
The Basque well-known writer Bernardo Atxaga is taking part these days in the PEN World Voices, the New York Festival of International Literature. >> More
April 28, 2006 | El Pais | El festival de PEN
El texto literario es una promesa que nunca se alcanza. >> More
April 27, 2006 | Turkish Daily News | Pamuk: Iraq war is the shame of US and West
Turkey's internationally acknowledged novelist, Orhan Pamuk, leveled harsh criticism at the U.S.-led war in Iraq by saying that the Iraq war did not bring peace or democracy to the region but rather sparked nationalist and anti-Western sentiments. >> More
April 27, 2006 | El Pais | Rushdie acusa a Bush
Hay momentos en los que los escritores son realmente importantes. Y el actual es uno de ellos, según el novelista Salman Rushdie, presidente del festival literario PEN Voces del mundo. >> More
April 27, 2006 | New York Times | In a Break From Mystery, A Writer Turns to Africa
To many English speakers Henning Mankell is probably best known as the creator of Inspector Kurt Wallander, a morose, self-loathing plainclothes officer whose dark vision of himself is matched only by the bleakness of the Swedish terrain and weather in which he somehow manages to track down the villains. >> More
April 26, 2006 | El Pais | Los escritores cruzan la línea entre la razón y la fe
Fe y razón son dos conceptos que coexisten en una relación que no es sencilla. ¿Qué papel juega la literatura en esta compleja interacción que discurre por todo el mundo? >> More
April 21, 2006 | New York Times | Found in Translation: Endangered Languages
Some 6,500 languages spoken in the world today. And, according to the 2000 census, you can hear at least 92 of them on the streets of New York. >> More
April 2006 | Blogroll
Read about PEN World Voices from blogs around the world. >> More
March 29, 2006 | Bernardo Atxaga | The Basque Spring
March 29, 2006 | Bernardo Atxaga | The Basque Spring The story that began when a group of university students founded Basque Homeland and Liberty, the organization known as ETA, has finally come to an end with its announcement last week of a permanent cease-fire. >> More
March 27, 2006 | Etgar Keret | Stupor in Our Time
March 27, 2006 | Etgar Keret | Stupor in Our Time If, after all the hopes and disappointments, all the accords and intifadas, the best a whole country can wish for is a politician so nondescript that the pundits are still arguing over whether he's on the left or the right — if we want a non-event on Election Day — then we really must be exhausted. >> More
March 21, 2006 | New York Times | Biographer to Lead PEN Center in the U.S.
March 21, 2006 | New York Times | Biographer to Lead PEN Center in the U.S. At the annual meeting of the PEN American Center on Thursday night, the organization of writers and editors is expected to ratify Ron Chernow, the best-selling biographer of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton, as its next president. >> More
April 27, 2005 | Arab News | Word and World in New York
You’re enamored of books, ideas and the life of the mind? Then you should’ve attended the weeklong PEN World Voices. >> More
April 24, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Books vs. Goons
April 24, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Books vs. Goons 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. >> More
April 23, 2005 | New York Times | A Crowd That's Seldom at a Loss for Words
It was one of the largest international gatherings of writers in New York since the PEN international congress of 1986. >> More
April 17, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | The Pen and the Sword
April 17, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | The Pen and the Sword In January 1986 I came to New York for a gathering of writers that has become a literary legend. >> More
April 16, 2005 | Globe & Mail | Still tilting at Quixote 400 years later
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. >> More
April 15, 2005 | New York Press | Salman Rushdie Interview
It’s ridiculous that New York doesn’t have an international literary festival. It was an obvious hole in the cultural calendar we wanted to fill. >> More
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