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Theme: Venezuela

Editorial

Liberating Writing from Venezuela

Reading the newspapers in Venezuela or hearing the news on television or radio you may well get the impression that...

Text: Elnaz Baghlanian January 22 2019
Fiction

(the business of living)

Carlos Egaña is one of Venezuela’s most prominent poets. Like many other poets of his generation he mainly publishes his poetry online. Internet has become a second home since traditional media are...

Text: Carlos Egaña January 22 2019
Interview

“We’re Living under a Systematic Censorship”

President Nicolás Maduro was recently sworn in for a new six-year term of office. No democratic country recognises him as the legitimate leader of the country, but that doesn’t stop the regime. The...

Text: Henrik Brandão Jönsson January 22 2019
Article

The Testimony of a Political Prisoner

Venezuela still has a long way to go concerning LGBT rights. For example, Venezuelan law does not recognize same sex marriages or partnerships. When Rosmit Mantilla, politician and LGBT activist...

Text: Cristina Raffalli January 22 2019
Fiction

Caracas—the City of Flies

The flies of Caracas have taken control of the journalist Luz Mely Reyes’ life. Over the past year a great amount of garbage is seen to litter the neighbourhood where she lives. The inevitable flies...

Text: Luz Mely Reyes January 22 2019
Article

On Fascination

“How is it possible that the greater the amount of nonsense the more passive is my spell state?” asks the Venezuelan writer and architect Federica Vega in his essay where he explores how a fascination...

Text: Federico Vegas January 22 2019
Article

The Censor’s Evil Dream

In February 2018 a delegation from PEN International visited Caracas to examine the state of the freedom of speech in the country. The outcome of this visit is a report by the Mexican writer and...

Text: Alicia Quiñones January 22 2019
Fiction

The Country of Broken Mirrors

The crisis in Venezuela is worsening. The political, economical, humanitarian, and social developments in the country have in the year 2018 forced two million people to flee their homes. “The country...

Text: Fedosy Santaella January 22 2019
Article

Waking up to Everyday’s Nightmare

Amnesty International reports that in Venezuela between 2015 and June 2017 more than 8 200 people were executed without trial. In his text the Venezuelan writer and editor Héctor Torres describes the...

Text: Héctor Torres January 22 2019
Fiction

Super-Cheap Scenes

With her blog called Escenas baratonas (Super-Cheap Scenes), the writer Margarita Arribas Zamora has renewed the well-known Venezuelan genre costumbrismo (depictions of daily life). Here we are...

Text: Margarita Arribas Zamora January 22 2019
Article

“I Came Here to Remind You that Our Freedom Ends”

In February 2018, the journalist and chairman of Venezuelan PEN, Milagros Socorro received Oxfam Novib/PEN Award for Freedom of Expression. Here, we publish her moving acceptance speech.

Text: Milagros Socorro January 22 2019

Theme: A room of one's own

Article

Role of women in Iranian science fiction and fantasy

Over the last two decades, the publication and sale of science fiction and fantasy literature has increased significantly in Iran. For a long time, these books have more or less only involved a male...

Text: Mina Talebli November 29 2018
Fiction

Letter to my niece

There are rights in Hong Kong that don’t exist in China, but these have been more and more eroded in later years. Tammy Ho Lai-ming, poet, editor and vice chairperson of PEN Hong Kong gives in a...

Text: Tammy Ho Lai-Ming November 29 2018
Fiction

Silent siege

Suzanne Ibrahim is a well-known Syrian poet, author and journalist. The everyday life and rights of women have dominated her writing and journalistic work. She left Syria in 2018 after having been...

Text: Suzanne Ibrahim November 29 2018
Article

Go back to your house

The author, publisher and critic Fereshteh Ahmadi’s states in her essay that “vagueness” is a keyword for the understanding of contemporary stories by Iranian female authors. What is the situation for...

Text: Fereshteh Ahmadi November 29 2018
Article

PEN International Women’s Manifesto

On International Women’s Day, 8th March 2018, PEN International launched a historical women’s manifesto as a part of PEN’s effort to combat the silencing of female authors. The manifesto was...

Text: PEN International November 29 2018
Poetry

Gazing at an empty mirror

Sahar Mousa is a Palestinian poet and writer. She published on Facebook during the wars in Gaza in 2008 and 2012, a series of articles that received attention. The articles led to death threats from...

Text: Sahar Mousa November 29 2018
Interview

One year with the PEN International Women’s Manifesto

The PEN International Women’s Manifesto is now a year old. It has during this year been circulated round the world. The important message has been welcomed by literature and publishing circles and has...

Text: Tanja Tuma November 29 2018
Article

When we become silent

In later years, violations of citizens’ and political rights have escalated dramatically in Bangladesh. Media is increasingly under pressure and the authorities fail in the protection of minorities...

Text: Supriti Dhar November 29 2018
Fiction

When I entered a poetry competition

“In 1988, a curse fell on my family when I was born: I was a female in a traditional family that was very religious and had Bedouin origins.” This is how the architect and poet Doaa Abou Shaghibeh...

Text: Doaa Abou Shaghibeh November 29 2018

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