Plus: Poetry from the World Voices Festival

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Displacement and the Life of a Writer: Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah Opens PEN World Voices Festival with Personal Remembrance and History ([link removed])
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“I believe that writing also has to show what can be otherwise, what it is that the hard domineering eye cannot see, what makes people, apparently small in stature, feel assured in themselves regardless of the disdain of others.” —Abdulrazak Gurnah

Tanzanian-born British author and 2021 Nobel laureate in literature Abdulrazak Gurnah opened the PEN World Voices Festival on Wednesday evening with a conversation that was part remembrance, part travelog, part history lesson—in sum, a journey through past, present and future animated by riveting personal details and the ideas that have seeded his widely admired novels: belonging, colonialism, displacement, memory and migration. Read our recap ([link removed]) of Gurnah’s conversation with Somali-born British novelist Nadifa Mohamed.

We still have one more full day of Festival events! Join us in New York City's Greenwich Village for conversations on craft and the body ([link removed]) , entangled histories of culture and self ([link removed]) , and the roles and histories of writers in exile ([link removed]) , as well as celebrations of PEN America's 100-year history ([link removed]) and the impact of forbidden books ([link removed]) .

See Saturday's schedule here ›› ([link removed])
Reading the Festival
Need a reading recommendation? Check out our World Voices Festival-themed reading lists on Bookshop.org—Reconceptualizing Borders ([link removed]) , which includes books on diaspora and borders; Nature, the Gentlest Mother ([link removed]) , which features books on the natural world and our environment, and World Verses ([link removed]) , a poetry-themed reading list.

Check out excerpts of our Festival authors' work, in LitHub and The Paris Review.
“Nobody in the Water,” ([link removed]) a poem by Tayi Tibble
“Monody,” ([link removed]) a poem by Canisia Lubrin
“Loyalty Rather Than Love,” ([link removed]) by Nadifa Mohamed
"Flight Paths," ([link removed]) by Omar El Akkad
"Two in the Afternoon," ([link removed]) by Mieko Kawakami
Epic Novels, Sweeping Sagas: An APA Heritage Month Reading List ([link removed])
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Revisit our APA Heritage Month Reading List on epic novels and engrossing sagas, curated by Asian American Writers Workshop Executive Director Jafreen Uddin. The backdrops against which many of these books are set are grand and seemingly distant from our modern lives today: from the opium trade between China and India, to the twilight of the American Gold Rush; from the 1970 Bhola Cyclone, to the devastation of the Vietnam War. But the journeys of these characters resonate in a way that only good literature can, transporting the reader to worlds and experiences far beyond their own. Read more ›› ([link removed])

SUBMIT: PEN America's Literary Grants ([link removed])


** Applications close June 1, 2022
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Have a work in progress that could use some support? Submissions are now open for PEN America's Literary Grants. The PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants ([link removed]) , PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature ([link removed]) , PEN/Phyllis Naylor Grant for Children's and Young Adult Novelists ([link removed]) , and PEN/Jean Stein Grants for Literary Oral History ([link removed]) support writers and translators to continue their important work. Applications close June 1, 2022.

The PEN Ten ([link removed])

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The PEN Ten with Marwa Helal: ([link removed]) “We have to laugh to keep from crying. I learned this from my elders. Humor isn’t just great defense, it attacks the institution in surprising ways that catches them off guard. Besides, we have to remind them who’s really in charge. There is no institution without us.”
From Our Partners
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Want even more news on art, books, and culture? Sign up for The New Republic's weekly newsletter, Critical Mass. Sign up here ›› ([link removed])
Selected Shorts: Bird Stories Hosted by Amy Tan ([link removed])


** Wednesday 5/18 | 7:30pm ET
Symphony Space
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Actors Yetide Badaki (American Gods), Holly Hunter (Mr. Mayor), and BD Wong (Awkwafina is Nora from Queens), and more perform short fiction about birds personified and birds as metaphor by authors Cristina Henríquez, Ben Loory, Heather Monley, and Mikkel Rosengaard. Author Amy Tan hosts and shares drawings of—and commentary on—the birds that inspire her to create. More info ›› ([link removed])
Fat Ham ([link removed])


** May 12 - June 12
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** The Public Theater
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James Ijames reinvents Shakespeare’s masterpiece with his new Pulitzer Prize-winning dramedy, FAT HAM. Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. More info at publictheater.org/fat-ham ›› ([link removed])

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