Most Commented Entries
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PEN World Voices: Reading the World

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geoff - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

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 Report: Public Lives/Private Lives

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TheMillions - May 01, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

by Garth Risk Hallberg A crowd representing all ages, income brackets, and nationalities basking in the brilliant comedy of a Hungarian literary genius: isn’t this why one moves to the big city? Seduced by movies and periodicals (here Woody Allen and The New Yorker deserve…
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PEN World Voices: New Directions in Spanish-Language Literature report

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literary saloon - Apr 30, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

The panel on New Directions in Spanish-Language Literature consisted of three novelists: Bolivian Juan de Recacoechea, Spaniard Andrés Ibáñez, and Colombian Juan Gabriel Vásquez, and was moderated by a fourth, Instituto Cervantes-director Eduardo Lago. Several of the authors have spent a considerable amount of time…
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Witness: A Special Program for High School Students

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Anne - Apr 30, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

I thought that the Crisis Darfur event was moving, interesting, and ideal. Nonetheless, as I hovered, famished, near the food table, scarfing down puff-pastry cheese straws (from Murray’s!), I could see why the whole scene reminded Levi to ask me if I’d yet read the…
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The Bodies Exhibit: Why We Read Frankenstein

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paisleyandplaid - Apr 27, 2008

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, usually credited as the first true work of science fiction, stresses the fairly common themes of man’s overweening pride, his error in overstepping boundaries, and the often horrific events that follow such actions. In Shelley’s day, early 19th century, many in the…
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PEN World Voices: African Wars report

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literary saloon - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Despite the heavyweight-panel—Nuruddin Farah, Chenjerai Hove, and Abdourahman Waberi—African Wars was the most disappointing of the events I’ve been to so far. It’s also the first (of the ones I’ve attended) where the audience was charged for their tickets (though my press pass meant I…
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PEN World Voices: Private Lives, Public Lives, Other Lives, New Lives report

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literary saloon - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Ingo Schulze and Eliot Weinberger got together to discuss Private Lives, Public Lives, Other Lives, New Lives at the Goethe Institut, in front of a good-size audience. It turned out to be pretty much an introduction to Schulze, covering his career trajectory and especially his…
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Writing Genocide, A Discussion at the PEN World Voices Festival

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Bud Parr - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Writing Genocide: a discussion between Christian Jungersen and Lieve Joris took place Thursday, May 1st at CUNY’s Elebash Recital Hall. Genocide is as vast a topic as it is an intractable problem, yet fortunately, our two speakers on Thursday’s “Writing Genocide” panel brought a particular…
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Book Review of I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies

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winebowl - May 03, 2008

Alfred Kinsey’s work elevated the conversation about sex.  Timothy Leary’s work elevated the conversation about drugs.  Now, Nick Smith gives us his thorough study of apologies, a work that promises to elevate the conversation about what it means to say “I’m sorry.” I Was Wrong:…
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PEN World Voices: Writing Genocide

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geoff - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

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: Rushdie, Eco, and Vargas Llosa

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Dorothy W. - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

When I saw that Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, and Mario Vargas Llosa were to appear together at the PEN World Voices festival, I bought tickets immediately, and I’m glad I did — the event was fabulous. Even before the event itself began, good things were…
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PEN World Voices Report: The Art of Failure

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TheMillions - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

reporting by Garth Risk Hallberg Late Thursday night, after several PEN events and many drinks, a European friend and I succumbed to the temptation to make sweeping generalizations about the state of literature in America and abroad. Most of our aperçus wouldn’t withstand scrutiny in…
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PEN World Voices: The Secret Lives of Cities

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geoff - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

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

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geoff - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

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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Umberto Eco, Salman Rushdie and Mario Vargas Llosa at PEN World Voices

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asheresque - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

“You’ll notice an empty chair has been placed next to the podium on stage. This is too symbolize those writers who could not be here today due to political oppression.” Thus intoned Leonard Lopate at New York City’s uptown 92nd Street Y, introducing a major…
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PEN World Voices: Bookforum: Political Engagement report

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literary saloon - May 03, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Asli Erdogan could not make it to the festival, due to illness, so Bookforum: Political Engagement was a two-man show, with Nuruddin Farah and Elias Khoury, moderated by Albert Mobilio. Farah and Khoury come from perhaps the two places in the world that have been…
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Jon Krakauer’s New Book Will Kick Some Powersthatbe Ass

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fellowette - May 02, 2008

My posse and I , while watching a censored version of The Big Lebowski for the second time in 24 hours, got to wondering what uber-amazing journalist and chronicler of lives on the edge Jon Krakauer is up to now, besides general badassery....
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NBCC at PEN World Voices Festival

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BudParr | MetaxuCafe - May 02, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

You may find some PEN reports at the National Book Critics Circle blog ”Critical Mass.” Jane Ciabattari reports on the Public Lives event. She ends her report with: Ian McEwan, whose last book, the brief and lyrical “On Chesil Beach,” was launched with a documentary,…
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Jason Boog at the PEN World Voices Festival

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BudParr | MetaxuCafe - May 02, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

We had a few interesting reports on the very big production PEN made for announcing this year’s World Voices Festival, but I particularly enjoyed Jason Boog’s video account over at The Publishing Spot. Here’s his video: Also note on that post is a brief note…
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PEN World Voices: Publishers Weekly: On Translation report

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literary saloon - May 02, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

The Publishers Weekly: On Translation-panel was the event I’d had the highest hopes for. It offered an impressive line-up: PW-editor Sara Nelson moderated, and publishers Edwin Frank (New York Review Books), Michael Krüger (German Hanser Verlag), Halfdan W. Freihow (Norwegian Font Forlag), and Morgan Entrekin…
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PEN World Voices: Soldiers, Gramophones, and Brecht: A Literary Conversation report

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literary saloon - May 02, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Soldiers, Gramophones, and Brecht: A Literary Conversation with Saša Stanišić and Gonçalo M. Tavares was a pleasant surprise. With PEN World Voice director Caro Llewellyn moderating, this turned out to be a very enjoyable and informative presentation, two basically unknown-in-the-US authors introducing themselves and their…
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PEN World Voices: Burma: A Land at a Crossroads report

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literary saloon - May 02, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

As Levi has already reported at LitKicks, the Burma: A Land at a Crossroads event offered more of a political-historical overview than literary panel. Moderator Dedi Feldman effectively used Thant Myint-U’s The River of Lost Footsteps as a foundation for the discussion, and between the…
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Opening night of the 2008 World Voices Festival

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nycphoto - May 01, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Opening night of the 2008 World Voices Festival Salman Rushdie is President of PEN American Center. He opened and closed tonight's event. His closing comments were especially amusing. He said he was the punctuation at the end of the evening - the human embodiement of…
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The Ten Commandments of Trying a Case according to Bluestocking

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Bluestocking - May 01, 2008

At last the trial betwixt WB/JKR v. RDR books comes to its conclusion. It’s been a rough three days. I won’t cause anyone a stroke by attempting to recap the whole week. Instead I’m going to have fun with this. Why? Because darn, plaintiffs made…
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PEN World Voices: Public Lives/Private Lives

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James Marcus - May 01, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Although PEN World Voices had already gotten rolling with ten previous events--akin, perhaps, to spring training--"Public Lives/Private Lives” marked the official opening of the festival. Town Hall was packed, and as usual, a jolly Salman Rushdie emerged from the wings to welcome the crowd, meanwhile…
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A Glimpse of Burma

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asheresque - May 01, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

A lunchtime PEN World Voices panel with global journalist Ian Buruma, Burmese author Thant Myint-U and Words Without Borders editor Dedi Felman today offered a look at the modern history and current politics of Burma, the Southeast Asian nation that all three panelists agreed was…
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Pen World Voices Festival Blogs

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Bud Parr - May 01, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

I had initially arranged with the folks at PEN to have their festival blogs show up here and vice versa, but we somehow got lost in the cracks. So, I’ll just try to keep you abreast of what’s going on of interest there (and elsewhere…
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Bill Marx at the PEN World Voices Festival

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Bud Parr - May 01, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Arts critic Bill Marx writes at The Arts Fuse about a PEN press conference this morning on the delivery of a petition to the Chinese Mission to the UN that asks for the release of imprisoned Chinese writers. He had this to say: The gathering…
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Review: Richard Ford’s “Leaving for Kenosha”

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Jacob Russell - Apr 30, 2008

I will move the first paragraph abstracts from the earlier posts to head their respective reviews. Richard Ford The New Yorker, March 3, 2008 It was the anniversary of the disaster. Walter Hobbes was on his way uptown to pick up his daughter, Louise, at…
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PEN World Voices: Crisis Darfur

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Anne - Apr 30, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

I got to the Florence Gould Auditorium a bit before 8:00 to find a peculiarly French combination of confusion and bureaucracy. To those of us seeking entry, there was lots of barking: “Stay in line!” “Hang on!”; amongst those in charge, there was much confusion.…
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Joshua Ferris does a solid for GenX: a book review in margin notes

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Tamara - Apr 30, 2008

AND THEN WE CAME TO AN END by Joshua Ferris …arch, smarmy, hilarious (a laugh a page, at least) …totally relatable (Ferris must be talking about the place where I used to work in Chicago! Or maybe a blend of my workplace and my spouse’s)…
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Mia Farrow and Bernard-Henri Levy Urge Hope, Action, Olympic Boycott for Darfur

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asheresque - Apr 30, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

At one of the kickoff events for New York City’s PEN World Voices festival,actress Mia Farrow, critic Bernard-Henri Levy and novelist Dinaw Mengestu met tonight at the Alliance Francais to discuss the ongoing genocidal situation in Darfur, which has gotten no better after five years…
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Analyzing Short Fiction: Beginnings--Some Preliminary Comments

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Jacob Russell - Apr 29, 2008

A prelude to analyzing short fiction. On exposition and the opening paragraph. When I try to find something to say about first sentences I find I’m almost forced to think in terms of the “hook,” one of the conventions of the short fiction review. In…
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Liquid Epistle

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Wm. Rike - Apr 27, 2008

Let us swim underwater, letting water be the medium through which we divine the swimmid kiss of our breath-held skins, aqueous and ultra-sensate. Let the skein of water, swelling, enreeling, lure each into the other’s dream, from whence we fish emerge to devour one the…
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Chic Lit: Marketing Gimic? Genetic/Existential Divide?

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Jacob Russell - Apr 27, 2008

A while ago I mentioned a reading survey I gave my freshman. I asked them a number of questions about the books they’d read while they were in high school, both assigned and unassigned reading. I was surprised at how widely read they were, collectively,…
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PEN World Voices, The Three Musketeers, again

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Anne - May 05, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Others have posted their reports, so I’m indulging myself with impressions. There was a time when I might have scoffed at the false glamour of going to hear three literary giants read and talk. This year, I jumped at the chance. After all, when Mario…
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PEN World Voices: Books That Changed My Life

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geoff - May 05, 2008

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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PEN World Voices Report: A Tribute to Robert Walser

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TheMillions - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

By Garth Risk Hallberg. After four World Voices events in as many days (scaled down from a perhaps overly ambitious six), I was about ready to hang up my spurs. Nonetheless, I dragged myself back into midtown’s London-style drizzle for Saturday afternoon’s “Tribute to Robert…
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PEN World Voices: Reading the World, again

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Anne - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

If Resonances rambled like an old jalopy, Reading the World clicked along with all the professionalism and friendliness of a Volvo. I don’t have much of an ethnicity nor a lot of ethnic pride, but what little I have lies in being half Scandinavian by…
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Pen World Voices Photos: Three Musketeers Event

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BudParr | MetaxuCafe - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

MetaxuCafé was shut out by the 92nd St.Y from taking any photos or video from Friday night’s Three Musketeers Event. They wanted us to pay “several hundred dollars” to exercise our right to free speech. Ironic given that we were there to report on a…
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Is There a Part of the Brain Reserved for Reading Poetry?

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Jacob Russell - May 09, 2008

Classes are over. Grades turned into. Only two weepy emails from students wondering what they had done wrong that I didn’t give them the ‘A’ they were sure they deserved. Do math professors hear complaints like this? “I know I couldn’t solve a single equation,…
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The Conversation: National Book Critics Circle Good Reads List

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Bud Parr - May 08, 2008

Perhaps the best thing to be said for a list of books is the conversation surrounding it. If there’s no conversation the list has no real context and therefore, in my view, little value. The National Book Critics Circle recently posted their ”Good Reads” list,…
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PEN World Voices: Rian Malan

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geoff - May 07, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

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] New from the Hub

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jenn - May 06, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

This was an event for the Internet website Witness.org, the international human-rights organization that uses video to expose human rights abuses. A section of the site for Witness.org called ”The Hub” is for allowing people to post videos. They give video cameras to people “on…
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[PEN World Voices] Bookforum: Political Engagement

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jenn - May 06, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

The participants in this panel were Elias Khoury and Nurddin Farah (Asli Erdogan, a Turkish writer, couldn’t make it to the festival because of illness) and the moderator was Albert Mobilio. The goal of the event was to consider questions of fiction’s role in political…
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[PEN World Voices] Burma: A Land at a Crossroads

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jenn - May 06, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Note that I wrote this before the horrible cyclones and devastation of the last few days in Burma. It breaks my heart to see this happen to Burma. My prayers go out to all its people... This event was dubbed as a panel discussion on…
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What Makes a Good Review?

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Bud Parr - May 06, 2008

My last post about a poorly written review made me think about how book review sections are declining yet as far as I can tell there are plenty of interested readers and writers out there. A big part of that is economic of course, but…
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Jason Boog at the PEN World Voices Festival II

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BudParr | MetaxuCafe - May 05, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Jason Boog at The Publishing Spot has some video footage of The Believer event:
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Editing for The Big Picture

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terena - May 05, 2008

Pencil in hand, I am reading the first draft of the manuscript sent to me by my new author, Tamarian Graffham. This is my absolute favorite part of being a publisher and is the number one reason I do this work. It’s also the reason…
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PEN World Voices: Truth and Reconciliation: A National Reckoning

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geoff - May 05, 2008

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

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geoff - May 05, 2008

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: Books That Changed My Life report

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literary saloon - May 05, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

It’s a good idea for an author panel: round up a few writers and ask them to talk about Books That Changed My Life. It was an interesting variety of authors, too, from sex-book-author (The Secret Life of Catherine M.) Catherine Millet to Wolves of…
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PEN World Voices: Conversation: Jeffrey Eugenides & Daniel Kehlmann report

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literary saloon - May 05, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

The only Daniel Kehlmann-novel available in English is Measuring the World (though Ich und Kaminski is due out in translation in November); it doesn’t seem to have been quite as successful here as elsewhere (30-some-odd weeks on the Taiwanese bestseller lists, he mentioned—as well as…
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“The horror. The horror.”

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paisleyandplaid - May 04, 2008

Conrad’s singular phrase from the turn-of-the-century novella, Heart of Darkness, says it all.  So many have borrowed from it, the best known work being Apocalypse Now, which is set in Vietnam instead of the Congo. Most people find the book a challenging read, but with…
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Eliot’s “The Journey of the Magi”—an odd Christmas poem

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paisleyandplaid - May 04, 2008

One of Eliot’s post-conversion-to-Christianity poems, “Journey” is essentially a monologue delivered by one of the “wise men” who journeyed perhaps hundreds of miles long ago to visit the Messiah, if not in his infancy, at least in the earliest years. A manifestly modern poem, it…
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PEN World Voices: Resonances

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Anne - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Well, 2 out of 3 isn’t bad. I thought the Crisis Darfur event was informative and worthwhile: as enjoyable as being lectured at on genocide can rightly be. And the Witness event was a model of how to engage students in reading and activism: I…
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Photos from the PEN World Voices Believer Event

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nycphoto - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

"Presented by The Believer and hosted by actor and comedian Todd Barry, this year’s Believer event featured a musical performance by John Wesley Harding, a Vladmaster screening in which every attendee will simultaneously watch a “picture story” through their own personal View-Master, and a panel…
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Two Takes on the “Freedom to Write” Cocktail

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BudParr | MetaxuCafe - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Sarah Deming reports on her time at PEN and has some great photos of the PEN World Voices party at the Cervantes Institute last Friday while Tayari Jones loved the cocktail Sarah made for the party. The “Freedom to Write” cocktail: 1 1/2 parts Grey…
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Audio Video and Lots more Blogging at the PEN Website

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BudParr | MetaxuCafe - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

I posted once or twice about the PEN blogs for the World Voices festival, but thought it time for a reminder because there’s a bunch more content there since they’ve recruited members to blog a lot of events. Here’s the opening of Marion James’ entry…
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More NBCC at the PEN World Voices Festival

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BudParr | MetaxuCafe - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Jane Ciabattari reports on the PEN World Voices “Believer” event at the NBCC blog, Critical Mass: Noting the disconnect between “a light-hearted entertainment and a constant reminder of imprisoned Chinese writers,” Barry riffed a lot on chairs (the empty chair on the stage representing the…
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Bill Marx on “The Art of Failure” Event

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BudParr | MetaxuCafe - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Posting at The Arts Fuse, Bill Marx reports on the Thomas Bernhard event that was part of the PEN World Voices Festival. This is how he began: Who would have guessed that a writer who proudly earned the reputation as the Oscar the Grouch of…
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PEN World Voices Report: Something to Hide - Writers and Artists Against the Surveillance State

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TheMillions - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

Among the core missions of International PEN is “the defense of writers and of freedom of expression around the world.” In the last two decades, as Salman Rushdie has been both its beneficiary and its champion, this mission has become increasingly visible. However, the artistic…
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A Discussion on Short Stories at the PEN World Voices Festival

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Bud Parr - May 04, 2008

This entry is part of the Roundtable Discussion.

“Short Stories” was a discussion held at the Scandinavia House for the PEN World Voices festival of International Literature on Friday, May 2nd. The participants were Etgar Keret, Young-ha Kim, Ingo Schulze, and Abdourahman Waberi. The discussion was moderated by Radhika Jones. If Radhika Jones,…
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