Pergentino José Ruiz on the importance of Mexico’s indigenous languages and oral culture
Read MoreCherishing Mexico’s oral culture
Pergentino José Ruiz on the importance of Mexico’s indigenous languages and oral culture
Read MoreAnd when the Mexican comic emerged from the sea…
In the latest of our PEN Atlas Mexican series, Laia Jufresa muses on the fall and rise of Mexican comics
Read MoreThe optimist's words
Yuri Herrera on impunity and corruption in Mexico, and the careful word choices of President Enrique Peña Nieto
Read MoreThe optimist’s words
Yuri Herrera on impunity and corruption in Mexico, and the careful word choices of President Enrique Peña Nieto
Read MoreMaidan: one year on
Andrey Kurkov, Vice-President of Ukrainian PEN, reports on his country’s revolution and counter-revolution after the first year
Read MoreYou speak such good German
Alina Bronsky, Russian-born but writing in German, charts the challenges and opportunities faced by the multilingual author
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Helle Helle, author of 'This Should Be Written in the Present Tense'
Helle Helle is one of Denmark’s most widely read writers. In This Should Be Written in the Present Tense, her first novel translated into English, she writes about a young woman, Dorte Hansen
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Helle Helle, author of ‘This Should Be Written in the Present Tense’
Helle Helle is one of Denmark’s most widely read writers. In This Should Be Written in the Present Tense, her first novel translated into English, she writes about a young woman, Dorte Hansen
Read MoreTo speak or not to speak, that is the question
Boualem Sansal charts the history of Algeria and how it ties into the history of free expression in his country
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Per Petterson, author of 'I Refuse'
PEN Atlas talks to Per Petterson about violence, absence, and the ongoing popularity of Norwegian literature
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Per Petterson, author of ‘I Refuse’
PEN Atlas talks to Per Petterson about violence, absence, and the ongoing popularity of Norwegian literature
Read MoreLife and Fate Redux
Robert Chandler writes from the first Russian conference on Vasily Grossman, author of the monumental Life and Fate,
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Arno Camenisch, author of The Alp
Tasja Dorkofikis interviews Arno Camenish about his bilingual novel,
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Arno Camenisch, author of The Alp
Tasja Dorkofikis interviews Arno Camenish about his bilingual novel,
Read MoreThe Weight of Language
Elena Ferrante writes for PEN Atlas about the impact of reading Madame Bovary
Read More‘You must keep feeding the lake’
Michelle Bailat-Jones writes for PEN Atlas about Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, a contemporary of Robert Walser
Read More'You must keep feeding the lake'
Michelle Bailat-Jones writes for PEN Atlas about Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, a contemporary of Robert Walser
Read MoreSpelling out FLIP
Sophie Lewis writes for PEN Atlas about the once sleepy and secluded town of Paraty, Brazil, now home to one of the continent’s best and most varied literary festivals
Read MoreNo more trips to the beach, no more ice cream in Gaza
Ahmed Masoud writes about his son Zino and his trips to the beach in Gaza
Read MoreLife in War
Nayrouz Qarmout follows her short story for PEN Atlas with a gripping diary piece from the heart of the conflict in Gaza
Read MoreUmm Ahmed: Newsflash
A rare and incredibly moving piece of fiction from Gaza, from writer and activist Nayrouz Qarmout
Read MoreWriting, recreating, surviving
Tomás González writes for PEN Atlas about the act of literary creation, the qualms over writing about family tragedy, and how one shocking night on a beach in Colombia changed his life
Read MoreA Golden Age for the African Short Story
On 14 July 2014, Okwiri Oduor became the 15th winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, for her short story ‘My Father’s Head’, making her the third Kenyan winner of the Prize
Read MoreHorror and words
Michel Laub, author of Diary of the Fall, writes for PEN Atlas on the importance of defining a vocabulary of atrocity
Read MoreThe shot at Sarajevo
Bosnian writer Alma Lazarevska ruminates on the events that triggered the First World War
Read MoreThe five stereotypes of Tibet
What’s the story behind the romance and propaganda surrounding Tibet?
Read MoreThe erotic and revolutionary poetry of Afghanistan
Amid recent election controversies, Bashir Sakhwaraz writes about Afghan women’s poetry
Read MorePlaying Vietnamese
For PEN Atlas this week Mariusz Szczygieł writes about the strange case of a Vietnamese literary prodigy in the Czech Republic who proved that fact is stranger than fiction
Read MoreWho wants to kill a million?
To inaugurate the publication of Syria Speaks, which will be touring UK bookshops, universities, refugee centres and schools, co-editor Malu Halasa writes for PEN Atlas about the uprising, the bravery and black humour of the activists, and how a satirical cartoon and finger puppets inspired the collection
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Joël Dicker, author of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
Tasja Dorkofikis talks to Joël Dicker about his literary and geographic inspirations, his method of plotting, and his novel in translation that has been a huge bestseller around the world
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Joël Dicker, author of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
Tasja Dorkofikis talks to Joël Dicker about his literary and geographic inspirations, his method of plotting, and his novel in translation that has been a huge bestseller around the world
Read MoreKiev’s Militant Spring
Alexei Nikitin writes for PEN Atlas about the tense atmosphere in Kiev, where the café-goers listening to jazz and the remaining protesters on the Maidan barricades await further news from the east of the country
Read MoreFinding the sworn virgin
Elvira Dones takes PEN Atlas to the mountains of Albania, where the story of an ancient custom, ideas about gender, and the resilient women who subverted both, helped the author to find a connection back to her homeland
Read MoreWho invented the graphic novel?
Ahead of European Literature Night, and the forthcoming British Library exhibition on comics, Paul Gravett writes about the history of the term ‘graphic novel’
Read MoreThe Greatest Turkish Novel?
Kaya Genç discusses the cultural and literary legacy of Hamdi Tanpınar whose 1961 novel ‘The Time Regulation Institute’ was published this year as a Penguin Classic.
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Otto Dov Kulka
PEN Atlas talks to Otto Dov Kulka, author of Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A: Otto Dov Kulka
PEN Atlas talks to Otto Dov Kulka, author of Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death
Read MoreTo start all over again
Santiago Gamboa writes a special PEN Atlas dispatch this week to commemorate Gabriel García Márquez, the way that he changed literature, and the deep love for his books from everyday readers to presidents
Read MoreThe apricot border with Russia, or separatism on Skype
With the growing troubles in Ukraine, poet and dramatist Liubov Iakymchuk writes for PEN Atlas
Read MoreNorth Korean love poetry
Shirley Lee writes for PEN Atlas, in a week when Korea is the Market Focus for London Book Fair 2014
Read MoreMy Literary Form(s)
In the run-up to London Book Fair 2014, where Korea is the market focus, Han Kang writes about women that turn into plants, the intuitive process in choosing between prose and poetry, and what the future holds for her writing
Read MoreThe suffering healers
Ahead of his appearances with English PEN at the Free Word Centre and London Book Fair 2014, Hwang Sok-Yong takes us into the shamanistic past of Korean culture
Read MoreOnce I Was a Dog
Jacek Hugo-Bader writes about the scavenging life of the journalist for this week’s PEN Atlas, and how living down and out in Moscow and Warsaw prepared him for his bicycle and Volvo journeys across Central Asia
Read MoreCapturing the mood
In the run-up to the London Book Fair 2014, where South Korea is the market focus, we have the first in a series of pieces from the region: today Chi Young-Kim writes about the varied places translators go to, from baseball blogs to animal fables, when transporting the reader into the world of the novel
Read MoreWorld War III: a dress rehearsal
In another exclusive dispatch from Ukraine, Andrey Kurkov describes the atmosphere of tension and surreality in Kiev and Crimea
Read MoreThe translator as literary activist
Jethro Soutar writes for PEN Atlas on the urgent case of Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, the PEN-award-winning author whom he translates and is now trying to help protect, as Juan faces persecution from the regime in Equitorial Guinea
Read MoreImagining the past – a few notes on the art of the historical novel
Otto de Kat writes for PEN Atlas about the risks and benefits of using history in the novel, a device that when used badly can lead to over-writing and when used well serves the novelist like a butler
Read MoreSyria – the betrayed uprising
Samar Yazbek, journalist, author and winner of an English PEN Writers in Translation award, returns our attention to Syria, the cynicism of the regime, the influence of outside powers, and how these combine at a great cost to the people
Read MoreComics, cartoons and controversy
Michele Hutchison reports from the 41st Angoulême Comics Festival, the opportunities for, and resistance to, translation, and how the irreverent form of comics still finds time for plenty of controversy
Read MoreRussian déjà vu at Sochi 2014 – who lost the games?
Mikhail Shishkin writes our second PEN Atlas dispatch on the Sochi Winter Olympics,
Read MoreWhat is the real cost of the Sochi Winter Olympics?
Hamid Ismailov investigates the underside of the Sochi Olympics for PEN Atlas: while the Western media focuses on LGBT rights, there is also the shocking unheard story of migrant labourers held in captivity, mercury and uranium deposits from construction work, jingoism, corruption and worse
Read MoreDeadlock in Ukraine
Andrey Kurkov, author of the bestselling novel Death and the Penguin, writes about the ongoing turmoil in his country
Read MorePEN Atlas: literary dispatches from Turkey
Maureen Freely introduces an exclusive new e-book from PEN Atlas, collecting some of the best journalism, memoir, essays and dispatches from Turkey, at a moment when the country is poised in the middle of great changes, both political and literary
Read MorePublishers' highlights in 2014: part 2
Following last week’s installment, PEN Atlas continues with another round-up of publishers’ top picks for translated literature in 2014, including Iraqi science fiction from Comma Press, the return of Hitler from MacLehose Press, Finnish crime from Arcadia and much more…
Read MorePublishers’ highlights in 2014: part 2
Following last week’s installment, PEN Atlas continues with another round-up of publishers’ top picks for translated literature in 2014, including Iraqi science fiction from Comma Press, the return of Hitler from MacLehose Press, Finnish crime from Arcadia and much more…
Read MorePublishers' highlights in 2014: part 1
This week PEN Atlas asks UK publishers about the translated books they are excited about publishing in 2014 – an intriguing list of books to look forward to this year, so clear your bookshelves! Publishers include Pushkin Press, Peirene, Doubleday, Istros Books and more…
Read MorePublishers’ highlights in 2014: part 1
This week PEN Atlas asks UK publishers about the translated books they are excited about publishing in 2014 – an intriguing list of books to look forward to this year, so clear your bookshelves! Publishers include Pushkin Press, Peirene, Doubleday, Istros Books and more…
Read MoreLiving by the pen
What is the cost of going on the payroll for a writer in Turkey?
Read MoreYule love these books in translation – 2013
Want some expert advice on what to read in translation? Then look no further. Top writers, literary scouts, critics and festival directors recommend books to give – and devour – during the festive season. Enjoy!
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