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PEN World Voices: Rian Malan
I read My Traitor’s Heart by Rian Malan not long after it came out in 1990. It was recommended by my ex-boss, a white South African exile who headed up the US office of the International Defense and Aid Fund. The book was frighteningly honest,…
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PEN World Voices: Books That Changed My Life
This was my last session for this year’s PEN festival, and it was a pleasant change of pace from the panels on wars and genocide that I’d attended earlier. Spurred and challenged and interrupted by the multilingual and irrepressible Paul Holdengräber, five authors spoke of…
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1 commentPEN World Voices: Truth and Reconciliation: A National Reckoning
The panel on Truth and Reconciliation had all the substance and detail I had hoped for from the panel on African Wars – in part, perhaps, because the subject was more specific, and in part because of the efforts of moderator Paul van Zyl. Van…
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PEN World Voices: African Wars
The panel for African Wars brought together two writers whose work I had known and respected for years – Nuruddin Farah and Chenjerai Hove – with another, Abdourahman Waberi, whom I had met the day before and found sharp and engaging. I expected some harrowing…
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PEN World Voices: Reading the World
As the title should have alerted me, this session was a collection of short readings rather than a discussion of some literary or political topic. My attention span for being read to is limited – I go to readings more to see what the author…
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PEN World Voices: Writing Genocide
I read several books on the genocide in Rwanda while I was working on A Basket of Leaves, and Machete Season by Jean Hatzfeld was one of the most striking. Instead of interviewing the survivors (as he does in another book), he talked to the…
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PEN World Voices: The Secret Lives of Cities
Participants: Juan de Recacoechea, Yousef Al-Mohaimeed, Francisco Goldman, and Joshua Furst. Moderated by Matt Weiland. The Secret Lives of Cities brought together authors whose work has focused on particular city: Recacoechea on La Paz, Al-Mohaimeed on Riyadh, Goldman on Guatemala City, and Furst on Minneapolis.…
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PEN World Voices: Short Stories
Participants: Young-ha Kim, Etgar Keret, Abdourahman Waberi, and Ingo Schulze. Moderated by Radikha Jones. Tall and striking in an elaborately figured dress or robe, Radikha Jones of the Paris Review began this session with a spirited defense of the health of the short story, noting…
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