In Mexico mission, PEN speaks for a silenced press
The leading American author Russell Banks set the tone on Sunday as he stood among international writers and their local colleagues in Mexico City: “A nation’s journalists and writers, like its poets and story-tellers, are the eyes, ears, and mouths of the people. When journalists cannot freely speak of what they see and hear of…
Only some Chinese writers allowed to attend PEN Festival
The stage was full of empty chairs on Thursday at “China in Two Acts,” part of the five-day PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature in New York, which ended on Sunday. A two-part program featured writer Zha Jianying speaking for the first part followed by a panel discussion in the second. The chairs, a…