personal essays
-
Omid Tofighian and Behrouz Boochani tell the story of Bangladeshi refugee Spicy – across borders, seas and prisons.
-
Kikuko Tsumura on making masks work. Translated by Polly Barton.
-
El Salvador’s Claudia Hernández on war, women, and burning. Translated by Julia Sanches.
-
Robert Jones, Jr. on discovering he was not the only Black, queer member of his family.
-
Nayrouz Qarmout writes about Edinburgh, Gaza, short stories, and packing her bag.
-
Read Jay Bernard’s ‘England Street (Reggae fi Linton)’, commissioned to celebrate Linton Kwesi Johnson winning the 2020 PEN Pinter Prize. Featuring a specially commissioned introduction to the poem from Jay.
-
Priyamavada Gopal writes on her experience of online hatred, and calls for an end to a politics of hate.
-
Kavita Bhanot writes on mother-tongue shame, translating across generations, and decolonising translation.
-
Tsitsi Dangarembga, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, writes on demonstrating, writing, and being arrested.
-
A statement from Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Laureate and Chair of Belarusian PEN.
-
Kurdish writer Nurcan Baysal responds to a letter from Nedim Türfent.
-
Alex Valente on translating fascism between Italy, the UK and the US.
-
Patrice Lawrence writes about her father, Windrush, and death.
-
Barbadian speculative fiction writer Karen Lord writes before and after a storm.
-
Yvonne Battle-Felton on listening, fear, and home.
-
Dzifa Benson writes on contemporary and historical perceptions of black women’s bodies
-
Andrzej Tichý writes on music and migrant experience
-
Can Bahadır Yüce writes on Turkey’s response to coronavirus, and calls for the release of at-risk political prisoners
-
South African writer Henrietta Rose-Innes writes on lockdown in Cape Town, and spider bites.
-
Three days from a week of Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares’s coronavirus diary.
PEN Transmissions 