Join us for the PEN World Voices Festival!!
Schedule of Events:
6:30 pm - 7:45 pm: Page to Screen: Book to Film Adaptations with Sigrid Nunez and André Aciman
When novels hit the big screen, an author's words leap off the page-and sometimes take unexpected turns. But what happens when a beloved story is transformed into a film? Join award-winning cultural critic Soraya Nadia McDonald for a fascinating conversation with authors Sigrid Nunez (The Friend) and André Aciman (Call Me by Your Name) as they discuss their experiences with film adaptations.
Nunez's The Friend is set to become a 2025 movie starring Naomi Watts, Constance Wu, and Bill Murray, while Aciman's Call Me by Your Name was brought to life in 2017 with Timothée Chalamet. The authors will share their thoughts on how their characters and stories evolved for the screen, the surprises they encountered, and what it's like seeing their work reimagined for new audiences.
6:30 pm - 7:45 pm: Seen, Heard, and Believed? Exploring Women's Experiences in Healthcare
In healthcare, being a patient is different from truly receiving care. How a patient is seen, heard, and believed by their provider can be just as impactful to their health outcomes as the treatment itself. Join Tanya Selvaratnam, journalist and moderator, for a compelling conversation with authors Samina Ali (Pieces You'll Never Get Back) and Ariel Gore (Rehearsals for Dying) as they share their personal, eye-opening experiences with the healthcare system. Samina Ali's memoir details her battle with a life-changing neurological disorder, a traumatic birth, and her unlikely recovery. Ariel Gore's memoir reflects on her wife's struggle with metastatic breast cancer and the untold realities of being a caregiver. This conversation will dive into the challenges women face when receiving healthcare.
6:30 pm - 7:45 pm: The Wages of Immigration
What are the personal costs an immigrant must pay when leaving one land for another? And how are the scales weighted differently depending on social class and background? Three incisive recent novels-Weike Wang's "Rental House," Javier Fuentes' "Countries of Origin," and Dinaw Mengestu's "Someone Like Us"-consider the immigrant experience from a variety of angles, and in vastly different locales, with an eye to its inherent disparities and pitfalls.
6:30 pm - 7:30 pm: Translation Slam
The Translation Slam puts different translations of the same text side by side and invites the translators, authors, and audience members to join in a lively critical debate of how each version meets its creative challenges. A new text, previously untranslated into English, will be provided by German author Daniel Kehlmann (The Director). Translating Kehlmann's work from German will be translator Geoffrey C. Howes and a second translator. A translation of Kehlmann's work will also be provided by ChatGPT. Translations will vie for audience approval and the event will end with a brief QandA. Hosting the Slam will be PEN america Translation Committee member, Annelise Finegan.
7:00 pm - 8:15 pm: After The Fall: Post-Apocalyptic Novels
Raptures and apocalypses have preoccupied our attention and imagination throughout the long arc of human history. But what happens after? In an age where the apocalyptic feels like the new normal, it is the post-apocalyptic that has captivated a new era of writers as a tool for expressing the anxieties and injustices endemic to our time.
Join Uruguayan author Fernanda Trias (Pink Slime), Catalan author Pol Guasch (Napalm in the Heart), and american author Jeff VanderMeer (Absolution) for a discussion of their new post-apocalyptic novels moderated by historian and journalist Ilia Veniavkin. This wide-ranging, international conversation will explore the ways post-apocalyptic landscapes lay bare societal hierarchies, raise climate concerns, and both reflect and respond to the tribulations of contemporary life. Don't miss this thought-provoking discussion of our future in the ruins.
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm: DREaming Out Loud (virtual)
From Mexico to Nigeria, Kazakhstan to Honduras, Brazil to Jamaica, South Africa to Bangladesh, and beyond, our DREamers will share stories of journeys toward hope, healing, and joy from around the world. They come together as students from DREaming Out Loud, PEN america's series of tuition-free writing workshops for emerging immigrant writers in the U.S., founded by the award-winning Mexican novelist Álvaro Enrigue in 2016. Join us virtually to celebrate our newest generation of DREamers as they give voice to new writing inspired by this extraordinary year.
DREaming Out Loud is supported by public funds from the New York City Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), and is presented in collaboration with the Mexican Studies Institute at the City University of New York (CUNY).
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm: The Art of Exile: A Screening and Conversation
Join us for a screening of the short documentary film The Art of Exile, co-presented by Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) and City of Asylum, and a conversation featuring Sudanese activist and writer Rania Mamoun (Something Evergreen Called Life), Algerian novelist and human rights defender Anouar Rahmani, and Vietnamese pop star and dissident Mai Khôi, moderated by ARC's executive director, Julie Trébault.
Art of Exile, brings together three documentary shorts from directors Dara Kell and Veena Rao that recount the stories of a visionary, self-taught artist, a boundary-pushing novelist, and a defiant musician who challenge the status quo, preconceived notions, and the boundaries of the permissible. The discussion will highlight the work of each writer and ask, what does it mean to make art while navigating the creative, personal, and logistical challenge of living in exile.
8:00 pm - 9:15 pm: Dialogues: Poetry in Conversation
From the moment pen is set to paper, all literature is inherently in dialogue: with predecessors, peers, canons, and its readers alike. Some literature goes a step further, though, centering the act of conversation as a core facet of the work.
Join poets Dunya Mikhail (Tablets: Secrets of the Clay) and Radu Vancu, for an exciting discussion on the power of dialogue in poetry. Moderated by poet and translator Nancy Naomi Carlson (transl. When We Only Have the Earth) these poets will explore how their poems engage in dialogue with other artists, writers, poets, and forms. From meditative discourses with ancient Sumerian tablets to ekphrastic poems, these works expose the poignance of exchange and dialogue in poetry. As literary translators, these poets will also reveal how translation informs their approach to writing poetry.
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm: DREaming On Stage (virtual)
From different corners of the earth, a group of writers have gathered to write epic plays about everything they know and everything they believe in. They have queered your sacred texts, reimagined folklore, excavated ghosts, and made absolute magic. Join us virtually and watch these emerging writers birth new plays and new forms they have created.
DREaming Out Loud is supported by public funds from the New York City Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), and is presented in partnership with the National Queer Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, and the Mexican Studies Institute at the City University of New York (CUNY).
8:00 pm - 9:15 pm: Towards A Trans Aesthetic
Join acclaimed writers Oliver Radclyffe (Frighten the Horses), Meredith Talusan (Fairest), Bishakh Som (Apsara Engine) and PEN american President Jennifer Finney Boylan (Cleavage) for a conversation exploring how their experiences within the transgender community have shaped their aesthetics as memoirists. From navigating the differences between genders to crafting late in life coming of age narratives, these authors will explore how their journeys and communities have influenced their stylistic choices.
In a time where trans lives and stories are facing increasing political and legislative attacks, these authors will also delve into the experience of writing and publishing trans narratives in america today.
8:30 pm - 9:45 pm: Ways of Writing the Self
Writers often mine their own lives for inspiration, turning personal experiences into groundbreaking narratives. From experimental memoirs, to autofiction, to works that blur the line between fiction and reality, these stories offer fresh perspectives on the self.
Join Sheila Heti (Alphabetical Diaries), Vigdis Hjorth (If Only), and moderator Jenny Niven, Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, for an engaging conversation discussing how these authors transformed the raw material of their lives into creative works. In Alphabetical Diaries Heti collected 500,000 words from 10 years' worth of journals, put the sentences in a spreadsheet, and sorted them alphabetically before cutting them down to a final 60,000 words. In If Only Hjorth writes a novel delving into the psyche of a writer having an affair with a married man. Heti will be joining virtually. Discover why these authors chose to expose their inner worlds through these works and the many different approaches to writing the self.
9:00 pm - 10:15 pm: Crafting Nightmares: The Art of Horror with Stephen Graham Jones and Paul Tremblay
The new novels of Paul Tremblay (Horror Movie) and Stephen Graham Jones (The Buffalo Hunter Hunter) will make readers' palms sweat, breath catch, and hearts race. Join two modern horror masters for an electrifying discussion on their new novels, moderated by NPR's Gabino Iglesias (House of Bone and Rain). From reinventing the "cursed film" to bringing vampires to the Blackfeet reservation, Tremblay and Jones subvert horror tropes and push the genre into bold new directions. In this conversation the two titans will also discuss their perspectives on the craft of horror and the different interests that have captured them over the course of their careers.
