On Friday, one week after the brutal assault on Salman Rushdie, PEN America convened Stand With Salman, bringing his fellow writers and his readers to the steps of the New York Public Library and online from around the world. Writers including Paul Auster, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Tina Brown, Francesco Clemente, Kiran Desai, Andrea Elliott, Jeffrey Eugenides, Amanda Foreman, A.M. Homes, Siri Hustvedt, Hari Kunzru, Aasif Mandvi, Colum McCann, Andrew Solomon, and Gay Talese read from Rushdie’s body of work and celebrated his undaunted courage and tireless advocacy on behalf of imperiled writers everywhere. Watch a recording of the livestream and read our recap of the event here ››
From our partners at the New York Public Library, explore a selection of Salman Rushdie's most notable works, from his controversial 1988 novel The Satanic Verses—the publication of which resulted in Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa against the author—to children's books, memoirs, and essay collections that Rushdie has written in the shadow of censorship. Learn more ››
Submissions for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction are due Sept. 1st. The PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction is a career-founding prize, which promotes fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships. Past winners include Jamila Minnicks (Moonrise Over New Jessup), Katherine Seligman (At the Edge of the Haight), and Lisa Ko (The Leavers). Submit here ››
Check out PEN America's Prison and Justice Writing Program's collaboration with The Poetry Project, a digital zine titledI am climbing the stairs that I create with these words all the way to the top. In April, for National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), the Prison and Justice Writing Program (PJW) distributed thirty shared prompts to incarcerated poets. The result of this dedicated exercise makes up this zine, which houses the work of eighteen poets. Read the zine, as well as PJW program assistant Anjali Emsellem's introduction to the project ››
Tuesday 8/16 – Tuesday 8/30 | 1pm ET
Digital Event
August is Women in Translation (#WiT) Month! This reading series was initiated by blogger Meytal Radzinski in 2014 to raise awareness of translated literature by women, queer, and nonbinary authors, and promote gender and cultural diversity in literary publishing. Organized under the support of the PEN America Translation Committee, these events will bring together three panels of translators, joined by their authors, working in a diversity of languages. Learn more and register here ››
The PEN Ten with Sholeh Wolpé:“This is how creativity advances us, step by arduous step—not just up or down, sideways, forward or backward, but also dance-bouncing across time.”
The PEN Ten with t. jahan:“Regardless of how we identify, in the palms of our hands we have these important memories, and we are trying to understand why we remember them in the first place: Why, of all the things I could have remembered, do I remember this? Is there a pattern? What do I do with these memories?”
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