• Coffee Corner

    Coffee Corner

    Bushra al-Maqtari on how Sana’a, Yemen, has changed. Translated by Sawad Hussain.

  • Editorial: women 2018

    Editorial: women 2018

    This being the Year of Publishing Women, we are dedicating our first issue to women’s writing, bringing together voices from Mexico, Argentina, Singapore, and the UK.

  • Welcome

    Welcome

    Welcome to PEN Transmissions! We are a new online zine dedicated to international writing.

  • Against labels

    I am an artist, I get to be my home, my own language, my own culture.

  • Lampedusa: Gateway to Europe

    We must welcome those who run away from hunger and war. Lampedusa’s people did it and sent a message to Europe. And Europe has to hear this message.

  • Loosened Locks: on Mahvash Sabet

    A woman walked out of Evin Prison in Tehran late one evening. Her face was pale from long confinement but her eyes shone bright.

  • Die, My Love

    I lay back in the grass among fallen trees and the heat of sun on my palm felt like a knife I could use to bleed myself dry with one swift cut to the jugular.

  • The Writer’s Paradox

    I am writing this in a prison cell. But I am not in prison. I am a writer.

  • Yazarın paradoksu

    Ahmet Altan was imprisoned in Turkey with his brother Mehmet in September 2016. Despite being denied access to receiving and sending written communications, he wrote The Writer’s Paradox for publication on the eve of his trial, which starts on 19 September. We have been campaigning to raise awareness of Ahmet’s plight as part of our…

  • The power of place

    This is how my imagination works, I suppose: mysteriously, the process of writing always begins with a place.

  • Elena Varvello on the power of place

    Elena Varvello explores the idea of place as a multitude of characters in her writing.

  • Instructions Within — Andrew McMillan reads Ashraf Fayadh’s poetry

    Andrew McMillan reads the poetry of Ashraf Fayadh, a Palestinian-born writer and artist imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for his work.

  • Editing a book review: a dangerous act in Turkey

    As Cumhuriyet journalists await their verdict in Turkey, Can Bahadır Yüce pays tribute to his imprisoned colleagues and reflects on the link between populism and anti-intellectualism.

  • A conversation with Vigdis Hjorth

    We have to work on two fronts. We have to do something about the structures, and we also have to help the individual.

  • PEN Atlas Q&A: Vigdis Hjorth

    Norwegian author Vigdis Hjorth talks to PEN Atlas about her efforts to combine the personal with the political in her novels.

  • If This is a Lament

    Exclusive preview of the title poem, ‘If this is a lament’, from a new chapbook of work by Turkish poet Bejan Matur, translated by Jen Hadfield and Canan Marasligil.

  • A conversation with Dorthe Nors

    You become an estranged human being, which leads to a certain kind of solitude and loneliness.

  • PEN Atlas Q&A: Dorthe Nors

    We speak to Danish writer Dorthe Nors about her latest novel Mirror, Shoulder, Signal and its themes of solitude and loneliness in modern urban society.

  • The right/write to roam

    Inua Ellams discusses how his heritage and his multi-placed identity laid the foundations for his new collection #Afterhours.

  • The Revolution over Dinner

    Elliot Ackerman reflects on the role of fiction in times of conflict. His new novel Dark at the Crossing is published by Daunt Books in April 2017.

  • A conversation with Mohsin Hamid

    ‘Even if you’re 75 years old and haven’t left the city you’ve grown up in, you have migrated through time. To me, it feels like the theme of being human is being a migrant.’