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PEN Faulkner: Discovering Stories That Need to Be Told Washington National Cathedral (To answer many requests for the introduction of Isabel Allende, who gave an outstanding reading at the Washington National Cathedral, I’m posting it here.) Isabel Allende has been called “a literary legend,” a “cultural bridge builder” and one of the most influential Latin…
The volcanic cloud hovered above like the mythic hand of Vulcan, unseen and disrupting the plans of mere mortals. I was stranded in Casablanca after a short research vacation, en route to a literary festival in London and board meeting in Paris. What does one do, stranded in Casablanca? I headed north to Tangiers and…
(As part of International PEN’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of its Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) which works around the world on behalf of writers who are imprisoned, threatened and killed because of their work, the former chairs of the WiPC have been asked for brief personal memories of their years. For me those…
50 Years of Defending Freedom of Expression I’m staring straight into the sun lighting up the sky in shades of pink before it sets. I watch it slowly losing altitude behind a building near the World Bank. The yellow globe is sinking into the river, into the trees of Virginia across the Potomac. I am typing…
I met Haitian writer Georges Anglade, a bear of a man with a curly gray beard, in the Arctic Circle, in Tromso, Norway in 2004. He spilled a glass of red wine on me. We were at the opening reception of International PEN’s Congress, and whether we were moving in the same or opposite directions…
Washington, DC is emerging from its winter wonderland of nearly two feet of light powdery snow over the weekend. With snow crested on rooftops and banked along the streets, with sparkling lights blinking around town, circling the monuments and the White House, the city looks like a postcard for the holidays. Over the weekend if you didn’t have…
Going to the Movies Sitting on a thin gray-pink mat on the train platform, the children are waiting for us. We make our way over stones and past garbage, through a chain-link fence to what looks like an abandoned station. Along the tracks shanty houses and rows of laundry line the route a few…
From the November/December 2009 Issue of World Literature Today as the Introduction to the Special Feature, “Voices Against the Darkness: Imprisoned Writers Who Could Not Be Silenced” The prisoner Halil closed his book. He breathed on his glasses, wiped them clean, gazed out at the orchards, and said: “I don’t know if you are like…
On its 60th Anniversary, China is Still Crushing Freedom Congress should pass Resolution 151 to speak out on behalf of arrested dissident Liu Xiaobo. From The Christian Science Monitor 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…
It can develop energy and progress into the future without washing away the town of Hasankeyf, its jewel of the past. From The Christian Science Monitor Washington – In the southeastern corner of Turkey near its borders with Iraq and Syria, environmentalists, human rights organizations, and archaeologists recently won a battle in the effort to…
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