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Theme: #2 2011

Editorial

EDITORIAL

“Prison literature is a dynamic genre of our time”

Text: Ola Larsmo September 23 2011
Fiction

Behind The Rise of the Great Powers

The present copyright holders to Mr Liu Xiaobo's work, Harvard University Press, has not granted us the right to publish his essay Behind The Rise of the Great Powers. Therefore this text is not...

September 26 2011
Poetry

Nights and days

On September 23 ten years had passed since the Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak and his colleagues at the Eritrean newspaper Seitit was imprisoned by the Afwerki regime. Today he is being held at the...

Text: Lars Mikael Raattamaa September 23 2011
Poetry

To Dawit Isaak

Dawit Isaak was imprisoned in Eritrea on September 23, 2001. After 18 years, he’s still being held behind bars in one of the world's most uncompromising dictatorships, without being the subject of any...

Text: Ida Börjel September 23 2011
Fiction

I will steal into the murderers’ sleep

Samar Yazbek, born 1970, is a Syrian writer and journalist who has criticized the Syrian regime before and during the uprising. This text is part of a series in the form of a diary she wrote during...

Text: Samar Yazbek September 23 2011
Fiction

Letter from a cell

The Kurdish author, lawyer and human rights activist Muharrem Erbey was jailed in December 2009 and has since then been hidden and placed in the notorious prison of Diyarbakir. He is among other...

Text: Muharrem Erbey September 22 2011
Fiction

The ICORN-RELAY – Philo ikonya

In the last issue of PEN/Opp we started the “ICORN-relay”, where writers who has received refuge in ICORN cities tell us about their own background and the state of free speech in their home countries...

Text: Philo Ikonya September 22 2011

Theme: #1 2011

Editorial

Editorial

PEN/Opp grew out of a feeling of anger and frustration.

Text: Ola Larsmo July 07 2011
Article

Imre Kertész on self-imposed exile and writing

In early March the Swedish publisher Svante Weyler and the filmmaker Håkan Pienowski went to Berlin to meet the writer and Nobel Laureate Imre Kertész. The meeting resulted in a short movie, produced...

Text: Svante Weyler July 07 2011

"Why are you following me?"

The Swedish PEN received a letter in May from the pseudonym ”Danlambao”, who wanted to tell us about the state of freedom of speech in Vietnam and one writer in particular, Bui Chat. You can read the...

Text: Danlambao July 07 2011
Fiction

A letter to Ahmet

What is happening to freedom of speech in Turkey today? This is a question that the writer Çiğdem Mater raises in this letter to her friend and colleague, Ahmet Sik, who was arrested on March 3. She...

Text: Çiğdem Mater July 07 2011
Article

Who dares to speak in Yemen?

The Yemeni journalist and blogger Afrah Nasser is today one of the Middle East's important voices. She has been named as one of the 10 most important bloggers in the Middle East by CNN. Ever since the...

Text: Afrah Nasser July 07 2011
Fiction

Becoming An Insect

There are some things that can never be depicted in Zimbabwe; neither in journalism nor in fiction. But in this short story, a Zimbabwean writer writes under pseudonym about a historical case of...

Text: Keziboy July 07 2011
Fiction

The ICORN-Relay – Anisur Rahman

There are currently 35 sanctuary writers throughout the world who have been forced to leave their countries because of persecution and harassment. We give some of them the opportunity to have their...

Text: Anisur Rahman July 06 2011

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