Press Room

PEN America’s 2026 World Voices Festival Unites 140 Writers  from 40+ Countries to Celebrate Literature and Defend Free Expression

From April 29-May 2 in New York and Los Angeles, Festival convenes leading literary voices including Leila Aboulela, Agustina Bazterrica, Judith Butler, Cory Doctorow, Siri Hustvedt, Ha Jin, Molly Jong-Fast, Katie Kitamura, Daniel Kehlmann, Laila Lalami, Megha Majumdar, Dinaw Mengestu, Bill McKibben, George Packer, Sarah Ruhl, Esmeralda Santiago, Neige Sinno, Abdellah Taïa, and many others

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 19, 2025 (New York)

(NEW YORK)—PEN America’s annual World Voices Festival brings together more than 140 writers from 40+ countries to New York and Los Angeles April 29-May 2 amid mounting barriers  to international exchange and escalating attacks on free expression. This year’s festival celebrates literature’s enduring power to cross borders and challenge forces that divide us. 

For one week, World Voices transforms Greenwich Village into a buzzing international hub where writers and readers gather to explore the written word’s power to inspire, provoke, and illuminate. Across bookstores, schools, parks, and historic venues in both New York and Los Angeles, the festival offers accessibly priced, lively, and rigorous programming. Audiences will encounter favorite and emerging writers, discover new perspectives, and turn the solitary act of reading into an opportunity for collective connection. 

The PEN World Voices Festival was founded in the wake of 9/11 and the Iraq War to confront and offer an alternative to an era entrenched in cultural isolationism—and the current moment bears a chilling resemblance to the one from which the Festival emerged. The 2026 PEN World Voices Festival is a testament to literature’s ability to unite us, and to counteract the closed-mindedness that has resulted in a nationalist maelstrom. It continues to affirm PEN America’s commitment to championing writers and their work. 

This year’s featured authors lend their voices and knowledge to conversations spanning the popular appeal and radical potential of genre fiction; stories of war and displacement, repression and resistance; technology’s erosion of discourse; the comic novel as a way through darkness; graphic novels’ power to engage young readers; the protection of Black history under threat of erasure; the repatriation of cultural artifacts; the art of literary translation; and so much more. 

The 2026 festival is the first under the joint leadership of Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, named as PEN America Co-Chief Executive Officers in February after a year serving together as interim CEOs. Continuing its two decade legacy, the festival remains a vibrant element of PEN America’s mission to champion writers, defend free expression, and affirm literature’s indispensable role in society. 

Sabir Sultan, Director of the World Voices Festival and Literary Programs at PEN America, said, “The 2026 World Voices Festival is an act of jubilant defiance – an insistence on the power of literature. In the face of daily headlines about war, political polarization, deportations, and attacks on democracy, we have gathered brilliant writers from across the world to discuss their art and stories, the world, and how we live in it. In a time of inherent divisions, this year’s festival insists on our shared humanity, literature’s ability to connect us through our imaginations, and writers’ ability to reflect and refract the world around us in transformative ways. We invite New Yorkers to share space with brilliant minds, to talk about books and ideas, and to discover new and exciting writers from over 40 countries.”

At the opening event, Summer Lopez will speak with Judith Butler (Who’s Afraid of Gender?), one of America’s most celebrated scholars; Marine Corps veteran and National Book Award winner Phil Klay; and acclaimed author, journalist, and political scholar Molly Jong-Fast (How to Lose Your Mother) to discuss the endangered health of our democracy (April 29). Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf will join Pulitzer Prize finalist Moroccan-American novelist and essayist Laila Lalami (The Dream Hotel) and Andrew Carnegie Medal winning New York-based Indian author Megha Majumdar (A Guardian and a Thief) to explore how their dystopian near-future books illustrate political forces’ impact on personal lives (May 1). The Festival’s major Closing Night event sees PEN America President and novelist Dinaw Mengestu exploring, with Tash Aw (The South), Susan Choi (Flashlight), Patricia Smith (The Intentions of Thunder) and Madeleine Thien (The Book of Records) (May 2), how literature reflects the plurality of our world.  

The festival also features activations, including the free, open-to-the-public 10th annual Indie Lit Fair celebrating independent literary publishing, co-presented by the PEN World Voices Festival and the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) in Washington Square South (May 2); the creation of a public mural in Union Square with Afghan artist collective ArtLords (April 30); an installation of large scale books from the Unbannable Library; and the Festival’s first outdoor stage where vital discussions will be made freely available to the public (May 2).

Other headlining authors across the week of programming include:

• PEN America Board member and Puerto Rican author Esmeralda Santiago

(Las Madres), in a celebration and convening of Caribbean authors around the construction of identity in their writing (April 29) 

• Moroccan writer and filmmaker Abdellah Taïa (Living in Your Light), joined in conversation with Jong-Fast and others about writing complex portraits, either fictionalized or direct, of their own mothers (April 30)
• Best-selling German novelist and playwright Daniel Kehlmann (The Director), Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award-nominee Sarah Ruhl (Eurydice), and other author-playwrights discussing working across forms (May 1) 
• Environmentalist, author, and Third Act founder Bill McKibben (Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization), in a conversation about charting a path forward amidst climate catastrophe (May 1) 
• The Atlantic journalist and author George Packer, joining other authors in a discussion about writing political fables (May 1) 
• French novelist and memoirist Neige Sinno (Sad Tiger), in a conversation about storytelling reshaping one’s life in the aftermath of abuse (May 1) 
• Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela (River Spirit), joining a discussion about historic novels using nations’ pasts to speak to their presents (May 2)
• Argentine writer and BookTok sensation Agustina Bazterrica (The Unworthy) in a bilingual panel with Latin American women writers discussing witness and the uncanny (May 2) 
• Novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt in a pre-publication launch celebrating her latest book Ghost Stories: A Memoir with 2025 Booker Prize and National Book Critics finalist Katie Kitamura (Audition) (May 2) 
• Chinese American poet and novelist Ha Jin (Looking for Tank Man), in a talk with other authors about their protest novels and writing about dissent (May 2)

Consult PEN America’s website for the full listing of events!

Funding Credit

PEN America was one of 1,171 cultural organizations across the five boroughs this year to receive a FY2026 Cultural Development Fund award from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs from the City’s largest-ever $74.3 million Cultural Development Fund. The FY26 awards represent the most substantial funding allocation for the CDF and the most-ever grantee organization, supporting affordable, accessible cultural programming across the city. 

About PEN America

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.

Press Contacts

Blake Zidell, Adriana Leshko, and Caitlyn Tella at Blake Zidell & Associates:  [email protected], 917.572.2493; [email protected], 917.294.0544; [email protected], 408.806.2486.

At PEN America, Suzanne Trimel, [email protected], 201-247-5057