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Knowing Is a Kind of Pain: An Interview with Vaddey Ratner
Vaddey Ratner on memory, narrative history, and storytelling as a means of survival.
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Coffee Corner
Bushra al-Maqtari on how Sana’a, Yemen, has changed. Translated by Sawad Hussain.
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The founder of the English PEN Translated Literature Book Club reflects on its first year of discussions.
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The journalist and contributor to The Sorrows of Mexico reflects on the ‘three demons’ of narco-politics, censorship and corruption, and on the future of journalism in his country.
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The award-winning novelist discusses the challenges of writing ‘about’ a real person – as she has done in her latest book, inspired by legendary Olympian gymnast Nadia Comăneci.
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#RefugeesWelcome: poet and performer Simon Mole reflects on his experience of welcoming young people to the UK through the act of writing as part of English PEN’s multilingual outreach project Brave New Voices.
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#RefugeesWelcome: the poet and teacher shares his motivations for creating the Refugee Tales project – a literary journey of solidarity with refugees, asylum seekers and detainees, modelled on Chaucer’s great poem of travel and storytelling.
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#RefugeesWelcome: a short, powerful extract from the play The Immigrant, written and directed by Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor, which turns the story of asylum on its head to ask questions of us all.
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#RefugeesWelcome: the acclaimed children’s author reflects on her experience sharing the stories of refugees in Germany – and the capacity of children to empathise across cultures. Part of a special #refugeeswelcome PEN Atlas series.
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#RefugeesWelcome: writer and former child refugee Yovanka Perdigao retraces her own journey from Guinea-Bissau to London via Dakar and Lisbon, finding solace and empowerment throughout her journey in her love of literature.
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The creative producer for the European Literature Festival shares his highlights of 2016, and considers the importance of European stories in Britain after Brexit.
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The Polish–English literary translator reflects on the UK’s EU membership referendum – its tone and its aftermath – and considers the role of literary translators in this brave new world.
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Journalist Anjan Sundaram talks to English PEN’s Robert Sharp about his latest book, Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship
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Galician poet, writer and journalist Manuel Rivas recalls stories from his childhood under Franco’s rule. His latest novel, The Low Voices (Harvill Secker), is published this month.
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The acclaimed novelist talks to PEN Atlas about history, collective memory and place – the big themes of his latest book, Before the Feast (Pushkin Press).
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On the day of #EURef in the UK, award-winning French-Algerian author Faïza Guène highlights the importance of citizen journalism in imagining and understanding Europe.
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As PEN Atlas considers the theme of Europe ahead of the UK’s EU membership referendum on 23 June, novelist and essayist Janne Teller reflects on her multiple identities as a writer.
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This event was one of Svetlana Alexievich’s few UK public appearances in 2016. She discussed her new book Second-hand Time, translated by Bela Shayevich (Fitzcarraldo Editions, May 2016), and the new edition of Chernobyl Prayer, translated by Anna Gunin and Arch Tait (Penguin Classics, April 2016), to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear…
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The Managing Editor of Pan-African writers’ collective Jalada Africa reflects on the significance of translation into and between African languages after publishing 30 translations of a story by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.
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The author of Panty, published in English translation this month by Tilted Axis Press, describes how the limits placed on writing by South Asian women impelled her into surrealism, sexual politics, and the creation of new forms.
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An exclusive extract from Second-Hand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich.
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Asia Literary Review managing editor Phillip Kim talks to South Korean authors Cheon Myeong-kwan and Han Yujoo about the rising profile of K-Lit, Korean pop-culture and themes in their work.
PEN Transmissions 