Poet and literary critic Víctor Manuel Mendiola looks with dismay at what is happening in his home country of Mexico. In a very personal reflection, he recalls memories of times long past—the Mexico...
Most of the times journalists are kidnapped in Mexico, it ends in murder. Raymundo Pérez Arellano got lucky—he survived. He tells PEN/Opp what happened and why he was kidnapped.
Héctor Gordoa was supposed to write about a murder that was posted as a clip on Youtube. He was about to face the same fate himself. He was released—if he promised to write what the drug mafia said...
“Roj TV” has often been accused of being the mouthpiece of the Kurdish armed movement, PKK. The programs are broadcast in Kurdish from Denmark and Belgium and the Turkish government has repeatedly...
Trials without end, shady evidence, and fabricated documents are a reality in today’s Turkish judicial system. Translator Petek Demir was tired of seeing his writer and journalist colleagues...
The author is viewed as one of Turkey’s most exciting young filmmakers. In the below, she describes her encounter with the limits of freedom of speech and what happened when she wanted to make a movie...
Aslı Erdoğan is one of the foremost writers in Turkey, who never shies away from sensitive topics. She has suffered harassment for her work and has been forced to live in exile. Despite this, she has...
The whole world can follow the atrocities in Syria. We have been able to do that for more than a year. The only thing that seems impossible is to find political means to put an end the killings. The...
In Afghanistan, where four-fifths of the population is illiterate, poetry has always had a strong position—especially among women. The Afghan writer and journalist Nushin Arbabzadah writes here a...
The writer and publisher Ragip Zarkolu is an honorary member of Swedish PEN. He has over the years published numerous books on subjects that are sensitive in the modern Turkey. Until last week, he was...
Exile and deportation are not fixed concepts. They have always shifted over time, and been filled with different content. But the idea of returning home is at the center of all hope for freedom. The...
Reza Najafi is an Iranian writer, literary critic and editor, who lives in exile in Germany. He has so far published more than 350 short stories and literary essays. In Nirvana, he is presenting a...
Attempted assassinations, forced disappearances and death threats are a part of everyday life in Colombia. The country is known for its political trials. At the moment there are 7,000 political...
“Vietnamese poetry is created through the left cerebral hemisphere; it knows what it is doing”, writes the author and literary critic Kristoffer Leandoer about the state of Vietnamese poetry today...
Text: Kristoffer Leandoer Translation from Swedish: Caroline Åberg
December 14 2011
Far away from media attention there are people stuck in oppression, who never will be known or mentioned. This text is written by a Saudi writer under pseudonym and tells about ethnic and bureaucratic...
