The most recent edition of PEN Transmissions is timely; ‘Past Futures’ comes as the magazine turns its own page. Over its last twelve issues, PEN Transmissions has conveyed 35 essays and interviews to readers in over 120 countries. It has featured voices as diverse as Ege Dündar, Olga Tokarczuk, Daisy Johnson, Ece Temelkuran, Ahmed Sadaawi, Norman Erikson Pasaribu and Saskia Vogel, and covered issues as broad as revolution, women in publishing, sport, lust, nature, #MeToo and faith.
From this month, PEN Transmissions will be publishing pieces every other week, starting on Tuesday 13 August with a powerful personal essay from Cherrie Kandie, who was shortlisted for the 2019 Caine Prize for a story about a queer relationship in Kenya. At a time when the urgency of transmitting art and ideas across borders is acute, we’re excited to bring you more regular work from both emerging and established international voices. PEN Transmissions will continue as a freely accessible platform; to receive new pieces, you can sign up to the English PEN mailing-list and select a special interest in translation.
In the coming months, we will also be holding a series of PEN Transmissions events with accompanying magazine pieces. Around International Translation Day on 30 September, a special PEN Transmissions x Granta magazine collaboration will bring you new writing on, and in, translation.
I take over from Theodora Danek’s excellent editorship at a moment when the PEN Charter’s avowal of ‘unhampered transmission of thought within each nation and between all nations’ is vital but threatened. PEN Transmissions will continue to foster it, unimpeded.
– Will Forrester, International and Translation Manager, English PEN.
PEN Transmissions 