How are we shaped by the histories, cultures, and landscapes that surround us—and how does this inform the ways we engage, love, and hurt others? In the New York Times... Read More
When we talk about reading, we almost always talk about being transported. But where are we going? How does the place we are transported to become a character in itself?... Read More
Beyond the publishing industry’s tireless work catering toward a market in flux, the landscape of culture, social politics, and online discourse shifts faster than novelists can write. How do writers... Read More
Join PEN America and Lush Cosmetics in Union Square (Thursday, May 11th) and Astor Place Plaza (Saturday, May 13th) for the Banned Book Library, an interactive free public art installation... Read More
The Translation Slam puts different translations of the same text side by side and invites the translators, authors, and audience members to join in a lively critical debate of how... Read More
The current global cost of living crisis is fueling a staggering rise in inequality as it catapults health care, housing, food, and education to unaffordable extremes. Outside of the Global... Read More
Historians’ work unearthing the past offers invaluable revelations about the landscape of modern American politics. With the freedom to tell authentic histories under attack in schools across America, thoughtful, informed... Read More
As global crises abruptly manifest from invisible viruses, the swelling miasma of greenhouse gasses, world-threatening geopolitical tensions, it’s no surprise that in the past few years, we’ve seen a proliferation... Read More
From the literary world to college campuses the relationships between art, identity, appropriation, and free speech are hotly contested. Increasingly the value of freedom of expression is ranked in opposition... Read More
In the Festival's keynote lecture, Ta-Nehisi Coates will discuss this moment of attempts to erase African American history and black intellectual thought in the context of the broader attacks on free speech and free expression.
From Mexico to Nigeria, Kazakhstan to Honduras, Brazil to Jamaica, South Africa to Bangladesh, and beyond, our DREAMers will share stories of journeys toward hope, healing, and joy from around... Read More
In light of India’s 75th anniversary of independence, join esteemed writers Suketu Mehta, Zia Jaffrey, Amitava Kumar Kumar, Kiran Desai, Geetanjali Shree, and Raghu Karnad to discuss the current state of free expression in India. May 12 @ 6.
Eight decades on, the Holocaust continues to cast a dark shadow over the lives of survivors and their descendents. It is both a destructor of history, having erased the personal... Read More
War writing has long been a category dominated by male journalists and authors. Increasingly, women are reporting from the front lines, and writing short stories, diaries, poetry collections, and dramatic... Read More
Cesar Chavez said, “the people who give you their food give you their heart.” In this intimate conversation about all things food, Rabia Chaudry (Fatty Fatty Boom Boom), Padma Lakshmi... Read More
In the film adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel Women Talking, director Sarah Polley paints an intimate and powerful portrait of a group of women at a crisis point: after discovering... Read More
Charmaine Craig speaks with John Irving about his interest in gendered power structures, and how his understanding of a writer’s artistic freedom has changed over the course of his decades-long career.
From different corners of the earth, a group of writers have gathered to write epic plays about everything they know and everything they believe in. They have queered your sacred... Read More
January 6th, 2021 violently shifted the world’s view of contemporary American politics. When Donald Trump-supporting insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol Building, it sparked a series of investigations, reports, and... Read More
Both award-winning and bestselling authors R.F. Kuang (Babel, The Poppy War) and Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist, Hunger) write probing social commentary on the intersections of race and gender. R.F. Kuang’s... Read More
Han Kang’s Booker Prize-winning 2016 novel The Vegetarian solidified her place as a master of the surreal, and is a powerful reminder that what makes surrealist narratives so haunting is... Read More
Four acclaimed writers–Namwali Serpell (The Furrows), Kevin Chen (Ghost Town), Joseph Han (Nuclear Family), and Samanta Schweblin (Seven Empty Houses) convene for one special event exploring and excavating the invisible... Read More
Join PEN America and Lush Cosmetics in Union Square (Thursday, May 11th) and Astor Place Plaza (Saturday, May 13th) for the Banned Book Library, an interactive free public art installation... Read More
Vital Voices from Indie Lit Publishers, hosted by The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), presents readings from a diverse array of independently published authors. This event will feature... Read More
Join us for the eighth annual Indie Lit Fair, co-presented by the PEN World Voices Festival and the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP).This year, the Indie Lit Fair... Read More
In 1969, the PEN America Translation Committee released a manifesto ahead of the 1970 “World of Translation” conference, the first gathering of its kind in the United States. The manifesto... Read More
“Essential Workers” or “Frontline Workers” are terms that became part of our common language during the COVID-19 pandemic. Join members of New York City’s frontline worker centers—Domestic Workers United, New... Read More
The war in Ukraine has brought forth a remarkable resistance and solidarity among its citizens, as well as unimaginable personal and professional transformations. Artem Chapeye, fiction writer, is now a... Read More
The standards of journalistic objectivity remain hotly contested by readers, prominent media figures, and writers attached to newspapers of record. As we near another election cycle, questions about normalizing “extremist”... Read More
When we hear “kaleidoscope,” we imagine a lensed instrument revealing striking, mesmeric patterns. But the word kaleidoscope itself, derived from the Greek kalos, “beautiful,” + eidos, “form,” reminds us that... Read More
Truth may be stranger than fiction, but in fascinating novels from Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Anne Berest, and Anne Weber, the two realms powerfully meld and mirror each other. Vásquez’s latest... Read More
Children’s and YA literature have increasingly become war zones of conflicting values, with educators, parents, and politicians battling over what kinds of books should be accessible to young readers. A... Read More
What are the burning issues and obsessions that inflame writers today—or at least the minds of Booker Prize-winning authors Marlon James and Ben Okri? James (Moon Witch, Spider King) sits... Read More
In late November of 2022, the company OpenAI released its revolutionary ChatGPT technology, a free artificial-intelligence chatbot, to the world. Since then, op-ed sections, social media platforms, and brunch tables... Read More
What are the ripple effects of world-altering events on individual lives? How are relationships unsettled, communities unmoored, and faultlines gradually revealed? This event brings together an international array of novelists... Read More
Trans stories today are working against a daunting history of suppression, erasure, and violence. This event convenes transgender and cis writers to explore how they approach writing transgender stories in... Read More
Writing a memoir typically requires condensing the messiness and nonlinearity of a life into a narrative structure, with a beginning, middle, and end. And while biographers of historical figures can... Read More
What role do friendships play in our lives—setting us on new paths, grounding us, dissolving and reappearing at critical moments—and how do they shape the stories of who we are?... Read More
The journey to and from a second novel can be more fraught than writing and publishing a first. The anticipation of it being measured against the first—and ultimately better-received, or... Read More
Mahogany L. Browne, Kiese Laymon, Imani Perry, Patricia Smith and Tyriek White come together for a series of discussions, readings, and musical performances that explore the intersection of art, history, and family in the Black literary tradition.