This week PEN Atlas hears from Carmen Bugan, daughter of Romanian dissident Ion Bugan, on her discovery of previously classified files about her family that were kept by secret police
Read MoreAn 'archival identity'
This week PEN Atlas hears from Carmen Bugan, daughter of Romanian dissident Ion Bugan, on her discovery of previously classified files about her family that were kept by secret police
Read MoreTo some I have talked with by the fire
PEN Atlas this week features Taiwanese author Wu Ming-Yi, who takes us through the Great Pacific Trash Vortex, indigenous island tribes, and the ancient practice of storytelling – all of which inspired his first novel to be translated into English
Read MoreTranslations and Mutations
Adam Thirlwell takes us through the utopian goals and surprising results of Multiples, an experiment in translation
Read MoreOn #OccupyGezi, the Turkish Government prefers conspiracy theories to engagement
Oray Egin reports on Turkey’s ‘dissident witch hunt’. On Monday 5th August 2013, Turkish courts finally reached a decision on the most controversial trial to date. The Ergenekon investigation, which was launched in 2007, initially aimed to disclose an alleged clandestine organization that plots to overthrow the government. But over time, the investigation widened to…
Read MoreOur man in Berkhamsted
Kaya Genç introduces PEN Atlas readers to Şavkar Altınel: travel writer, inspiration for a famous literary character, translator of famous British poets and resident of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire
Read MoreWriting in the Language of ‘the Other’
In another fascinating piece for PEN Atlas, Gazmend Kapllani recounts his journey through languages, the difficulties and opportunities of being a multi-lingual author and how the language of the Other goes back to Homer and the birth of storytelling
Read MoreRecommended Summer Reading in Translation from PEN Atlas
Need a good book to go with the good weather? In the lead-up to this evening’s English PEN Summer Party, Marina Warner, James Meek, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Blake Morrision, and many more offer their tips for what to read in translation this summer D.J. Taylor I’d like to recommend Stefan Chwin’s Death in Danzig, translated…
Read MoreThe Achebe I Knew
Ahead of the Africa Writes festival 2013 (5-7 July) PEN Atlas hears from African writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o on his friend and mentor Chinua Achebe.
Read MoreThe present of the past of things
Patricio Pron writes a moving piece for PEN Atlas, about an encounter in a small German city that made him reflect on collective guilt, individual responsibility and the nature of the past, both for a person and a country
Read MoreThe Art of the Novella
In this week’s second PEN Atlas dispatch, Meike Ziervogel from Peirene Press makes the case for the novella, charting the history of the form, and reflecting on her experience publishing great novellas in translation from around Europe
Read MoreThe Walnut Tree of Gezi Park
Following recent events, PEN Atlas is running an additional dispatch this week from Turkey. Kaya Genç writes for us about Nâzım Hikmet Ran, whose poem ‘The Walnut Tree’ has taken on both a prophetic turn and an inspirational one in light of Gezi Park
Read MoreThe Sounds of Istanbul
In the latest of our literary dispatches from Turkey, Mario Levi contemplates the sounds of the city he grew up in, and the stories that lie behind them for those willing to listen.
Read MoreTaking a stand
Oray Egin reports on the continuing protests in Turkey, why they began in Gezi Park and what the writers of the country owe to those marching on the streets
Read MoreThe Tale of Two Adrians
Strange coincidences bring together two literary traditions in today’s PEN Atlas piece by Oksana Zabuzhko, which explores Ukrainian and Eastern European authors, their debt to history and their unjustly hidden classics
Read MoreTurning up the volume
Yasmine El Rashidi, contributor to the PEN-award-winning title Writing Revolution: The Voices from Tunis to Damascus, tells PEN Atlas about growing up learning English: exile and community, being alienated and finding her voice
Read MoreWhat's authentic about global literature?
Michele Hutchison investigates what the future might hold for the 21st Century novel: provincial literature with a global reach, or the literature of the cosmopolitan flâneur?
Read MoreWhat’s authentic about global literature?
Michele Hutchison investigates what the future might hold for the 21st Century novel: provincial literature with a global reach, or the literature of the cosmopolitan flâneur?
Read MoreWhat is a country?
Following her visit to the UK last week for the London Book Fair Turkey Market Focus, Ece Temelkuran reflects on ‘Writing Turkey’ and what the term ‘country’ has come to represent for her.
Read MoreTranslation, Revolution, and Pedagogy
Following her appearance at the Literary Translation Centre for London Book Fair 2013, Samia Mehrez writes about working collaboratively on the book Translating Egypt’s Revolution: The Language of Tahrir, which uses multiple perspectives to translate the linguistic and cultural meanings of the momentous events in her country
Read MoreNew frontiers for translated fiction
Jonathan Ruppin writes for PEN Atlas about the shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, what it can tell us about the context of translated fiction in the present and which names to keep an eye out for in the future
Read MoreWhat is Official? Turkish writing, from state discourse to civil literature
As part of our ongoing series of PEN Atlas dispatches from Turkey, Kaya Genç describes the struggle for the soul of his country’s literature between state officials and independent creative writers
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A – Gerbrand Bakker, author of The Detour
PEN Atlas Editor, Tasja Dorkofikis talks to Gerbrand Bakker about his novel, The Detour, Wales, and translating Emily Dickinson
Read MorePEN Atlas Q&A – Gerbrand Bakker, author of The Detour
PEN Atlas Editor, Tasja Dorkofikis talks to Gerbrand Bakker about his novel, The Detour, Wales, and translating Emily Dickinson
Read MoreNo offence meant
Award-winning translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones experiences extreme public reactions to the latest crime novel she has translated on a recent trip to Poland…
Read MorePEN Atlas – Editor’s Round Up February 2013
PEN Atlas editor Tasja Dorkofikis reviews the first few months of 2013 for the Atlas; offering up a few personal highlights so far and drawing our attention to upcoming translation Prizes and literary events and festivals.
Read MorePEN Atlas – Editor's Round Up February 2013
PEN Atlas editor Tasja Dorkofikis reviews the first few months of 2013 for the Atlas; offering up a few personal highlights so far and drawing our attention to upcoming translation Prizes and literary events and festivals.
Read MoreGhentish Talent – Graphic Novels from Flanders
Michele Hutchison takes us on a far-ranging tour of the European comics scene, with a focus on the beautiful, moving and innovative graphic novels coming out of Belgium
Read MoreTadeusz Różewicz and The Struggle for Poetry
For PEN Atlas this week, Basia Howard writes about Tadeusz Różewicz, Poland’s most translated writer. His memoir Mother Departs, published by Stork Press in March, describes the war he survived and that forged his poetic conscience
Read MorePast Events Disperse like Smoke
Gregor Benton looks at revolution, resistance and the Beijing University literature class that harboured three of China’s best-known intellectual and political adversaries
Read More