PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL 2018: RESIST AND REIMAGINE
Featuring Korean writer Hwang Sok Yong
April 16 - 22, 2018
Dixon Place
(161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY)
Tickets are required for some events.
Please visit: worldvoices.pen.org for information on all events.
PEN America presents the 2018 PEN World Voices Festival: Resist and Reimagine, this year’s incarnation of the renowned international literary festival, which will bring together the world’s foremost authors and other luminaries at a time when many are turning to literature and the arts as a guide to navigate contemporary crises. The Festival will unfold across 60+ events in dozens of venues in New York City, April 16-22.
Salman Rushdie founded the festival in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, to fortify links with the rest of the world; now again the need to connect and draw inspiration from beyond America’s borders is pressing.
PEN America Festival Director Chip Rolley explains, “We will examine different kinds of resistance—the internal and the external, the political and the personal—and tap into the imagination that is at the core of the best fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, joining together in a week that reaffirms our faith in the power of the word to transform our society, our politics, and our daily lives.”
PEN America Executive Director Suzanne Nossel says, “International writers and thinkers offer a well of lessons and insights on how to thwart and protest, to sustain and nurture resistance, to shore up threatened values, and to look beyond the present impasse. PEN America has always worked as a bridge across cultures and geographies, forging relationships and solidarity that are a counterweight against hatreds and polarization.”
Below are the events featuring Korean writer Hwang Sok Yong:
Cry, the Beloved Country
Thursday, April 19, 7pm–8:30 pm
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002
Tickets: $15
In recent decades, many countries have succumbed to autocracy or outright tyranny, but in every instance the voices of the people have risen to protest and resist. Those voices are often, powerfully, those of writers whose special gifts articulate the pain and rage of oppressed populations. Writers from eight countries that have suffered, or still suffer, from tyranny and oppression speak to the pain of what happened in their homelands. Join us for an evening of solidarity. Participating authors include Ryszard Krynicki (Poland), Serhiy Zhadan (Ukraine), Marcos Aguinis (Argentina), Domenico Starnone (Italy), Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya), Hwang Sok Yong (Korea), Basma Abdel Aziz (Egypt), and Negar Djavadi (Iran/France).
For more information and tickets: https://worldvoices.pen.org/session/cry-beloved-country
Unlived Lives
Friday, April 20, 7pm–8:30 pm
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002
Tickets: $15
Sometimes the life we wanted, or the life we planned, is thwarted by the place in which we find ourselves, be it a totalitarian state, a nation at war with itself or a country emerging from decades of communist rule. These writers powerfully and movingly explore worlds, in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and South Korea, where people are buffeted by geopolitical forces beyond their control, and forced ultimately to make do with lives that fall far short of their dreams. With Georgi Gospodinov, Petra Hulova, and Hwang Sok-yong.
For more information and tickets: https://worldvoices.pen.org/session/unlived-lives
About the PEN World Voices Festival (worldvoices.pen.org)
PEN World Voices is America’s premier international literary festival, attracting the best known writers from across the globe. Since our founding, we have presented more than 1,800 writers and artists from 118 countries speaking 56 languages in venues across New York City in a weeklong series of literary events with a human rights focus. The Festival was founded by Salman Rushdie, Esther Allen, and Michael Roberts in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, with the aim of broadening channels of dialogue between the United States and the world—a mission that, today, has never been more relevant.