World Voices Festival Join us for the World Voices Festival in NYC and LA to celebrate international literature and writers April 29 through May 2, 2026.

Join us from April 29 through May 2 at the PEN America World Voices Festival. Featuring more than 140 writers from 40 countries, this year’s festival is an insistence on the power of literature and cross-cultural dialogue — many events are free. Register now at: worldvoices.pen.org #PENWorldVoices

What book festival would be complete without dozens of authors? And those authors have written some marvelous books! Get a head start before joining us at the World Voices Festival and check out some of these great titles https://bookshop.org/lists/world-voices-festival-2026 #PENWorldVoices

PEN America's World Voices Festival returns to NY and LA April 29-May 2!

Find out more about this year's sensational selection of free and paid events at: pen.org/festival #PENWorldVoices #LiteraryFestival

Propaganda, Isolation, Censorship, and Entertainment: What Overseas Press Know About the Authoritarian Playbook Anna Nemzer, M. Gessen, and Yaqiu Wang discuss how media falls victim under authoritarianism, and what America should watch out for.

Journalists and co-founders of Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA), M. Gessen and Anna Nemzer, joined human rights advocate Yaqiu Wang and PEN America’s Viktorya Vilk to talk about media erasure under authoritarian governments at #PENWorldVoices 2025. Read more: pen.org/what-oversea...

Surviving the Impossible: Women Navigate Death and Grief in a Complex Healthcare System - PEN America Samina Ali and Ariel Gore discussed their memoirs, which chronicle the ways the medical system failed them.

At #PENWorldVoices 2025, Samina Ali and Ariel Gore joined Tanya Selvaratnam to discuss how the healthcare system often fails women, writing as a coping mechanism, and finding hope despite it all. Read more here: pen.org/surviving-th...

World Voices Festival: On Autocracy and the Slow Death of Democracy - PEN America On the second day of the World Voices Festival, five writers and scholars gathered to address the rise of fascism in the U.S.

“When I think about where we are now, the first image that comes to mind is of Kristi Noem standing in front of those cages in El Salvador... reminiscent of Auschwitz… The worst images of history have come back, and this time we’re doing it.” Francine Prose at #PENworldvoices pen.org/world-voices...

Photo of author Jodi Picoult and cover of her book 'By Any Other Name.' The image includes a quote: 'Write what makes you happy. The world is hard enough, right?' PEN World Voices Festival logo appears at bottom right.

At #PENWorldVoices 2025, @jodipicoult.bsky.social joined Fiona Davis for a panel moderated by Adriana Trigiani about “women’s fiction,” a nonexistent genre women writers are often pigeonholed into and dismissed. Read the full rundown here: pen.org/for-women-wr...

2025 PEN World Voices Festival: Towards A Trans Aesthetic - PEN America I want to help people think about gender in a way that frees them up. I want to give people thinking tools, and that’s kind of what I’m doing.

At the #PENWorldVoices session “Towards a Trans Aesthetic,” five acclaimed authors discussed their experiences reading and writing trans narratives.

The session featured a great deal of “trans fabulousness packed in a small space” said @jennyboylan.bsky.social. pen.org/2025-pen-wor...

‘History is the Shape We Give the Past’: Bernhard Schlink and Claire Messud Talk Preserving History Through Writing - PEN America Staying loyal to the truth becomes a necessity particularly when what it means to migrate and assimilate is changing in America at this moment.

At “The Winds of History," a #PENWorldVoices panel, German writer and academic Bernhard Schlink (The Granddaughter) shared the stage with American-Canadian writer Claire Messud (This Strange Eventful History) in a panel discussion moderated by WSJ’s Sam Sacks. Read more: pen.org/history-is-t...

Two Acclaimed Authors Look Back at Their Older Books, Now in Reprint - PEN America I’m fascinated by mythologizing, the incessant need we have. We may be hardwired as humans to do this.

At #PENWorldVoices, two prolific authors, Joyce Carol Oates and Carmen Boullosa—with more than 100 novels, nonfiction titles, plays, short story, and poetry collections between them—discussed why new editions of early works still resonate in “Bringing Back Books They Love.” pen.org/two-acclaime...

After The Fall: Post-Apocalyptic Visions at PEN World Voices Festival - PEN America I think that the act of writing is an act of hope. If I didn't have hope personally, I wouldn't write.

Raptures and apocalypses have preoccupied our attention and imagination throughout the long arc of human history. But what happens after?

At this year's #PENWorldVoices, authors Fernanda Trías, Pol Guasch, and Jeff VanderMeer discussed their new post-apocalyptic novels. pen.org/after-the-fa...

‘Home Is Where We Carry Each Other’: Stories of Exile, Memory, and Identity from the PEN World Voices Festival Los Angeles - PEN America Home is where your loved ones are... You carry home with you.

On May 2, the #PENWorldVoices Festival in Los Angeles hosted a luminous evening of storytelling, memory, and reflection. Moderated by Ipek Burnett, the panel featured Charmaine Craig (Miss Burma), Lara Aburamadan (Refugee Eye), and Hector Tobar (Our Migrant Souls.) Read more: pen.org/home-is-wher...

As they joined us for "Towards A Trans Aesthetic," an event at this year's #penworldvoices, we spoke to @jennyboylan.bsky.social (Cleavage) and Kate Bornstein (Nearly Roadkill) about the role of writers and the need for community and courage in the current political moment.

‘Is It the End of the World As We Know It?’: PEN World Voices Festival Opens in Los Angeles with Urgency - PEN America Democracy is fragile, but it’s also repairable—if we understand how it works, and how it’s being broken.

As #PENWorldVoices L.A. launched at the Wende Museum, "with Cold War artifacts lining the adjacent galleries and a standing-room-only crowd, the night’s theme—Is It the End of the World As We Know It?: A Playbook for the Times—felt not just timely, but eerily prescient...." pen.org/is-it-the-en...

At this year's #PENWorldVoices, NPR’s @gabino.bsky.social moderated an electrifying discussion between two modern horror masters, Paul Tremblay and Stephen Graham Jones.

We asked them about the role of #horror novels in times of political discomfort.

#worldvoicesfestival #authors

2025 PEN World Voices Festival: Writing as Resistance - PEN America Every poem is a smuggled truth.

At #PENWorldVoices, Uyghur poet Tahir Hamut Izgil and Iraqi American poet Dunya Mikhail delved into the urgency of documenting personal and collective experiences, and how the act of writing both engenders change and urges us towards the future. Read more: pen.org/2025-pen-wor...

Life in the Pyrocene: The West in the Era of Climate Change — Louise Steinman Sometimes you don’t see the San Gabriels until the streets stop and the mountains start. The veil suddenly thins, and there they are, in height and magnitude overwhelming. You plunge into a canyon fla...

"Life in the Pyrocene: The West in the Era of Climate Change." Louise Steinman covers #PENWorldVoices' LA event with cultural historian D.J. Waldie, poet and artist Daniela Naomi Molnar & Rubén Martínez, author of Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West: louisesteinman.com/crooked-mirr...

2025 PEN World Voices Festival Closing Night: Journalism Under Siege - PEN America At the closing night event of PEN America’s World Voices Festival, journalists Rana Ayyub, Patricia Evangelista, and George Packer talked about reporting in times of repression.

On the closing night of the #PENWorldVoices Festival, Rana Ayyub, Patricia Evangelista and George Packer, discussed The Perils of Journalism in an Age of State Repression, in a conversation moderated by Summer Lopez, interim co-CEO and Chief Program Officer of PEN America. pen.org/2025-pen-wor...

Photo of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaking into a microphone next to a book cover for Dream Count, with a quote from her below: 'I don't think that authoritarianism can destroy the human imagination. I don't think it can destroy storytelling.' PEN America World Voices Festival logo in lower right corner.

#PENWorldVoices kicked off on the 100th day of the Trump administration with a lively—and timely—discussion between Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jennifer @egangoonsquad.bsky.social, and @burhansonmez.bsky.social centered on the role of novelists in times of crisis. Read more: pen.org/2025-pen-wor...

PEN World Voices Festival: Writing Humor for Kids, Seriously | Lyn Miller-Lachmann A roundup of a fascinating panel for the PEN World Voices Festival on writing humor for kids that can be multilayered and subversive.

"A fascinating panel... worth the wait!"

Thanks to Lynn Miller Lachmann for this report from our #PENWorldVoices event “Writing Humor for Kids, Seriously”! lynmillerlachmann.com/pen-world-vo...

Jennifer Egan Says Reading George Orwell’s '1984' as a Kid Was ‘a Political Awakening’ Jennifer Egan spoke on a panel with writers Burhan Sönmez and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie during opening night of the PEN America World Voices Festival in New York City on April 30. Moderated by Clarisse...

Jennifer @egangoonsquad.bsky.social Says Reading George Orwell’s 1984 as a Kid Was ‘a Political Awakening’

The novelist spoke alongside authors @burhansonmez.bsky.social and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie during the #PENWorldVoices Festival on April 30 people.com/jennifer-ega...

France 24 discusses the #PENWorldVoices Festival and visits the ArtLords live mural creation event in Union Square, NYC, in partnership with @atriskartists.bsky.social.

Slices of American Life: With Aaliyah Bilal & Gina Chung - PEN World Voices Festival Join us for an intimate discussion with authors Gina Chung (Green Frog) and Aaliyah Bilal (Temple Folk) whose short story collections offer rich portraits of two vibrant American communities. In Green...

May 3 at #PENWorldVoices: Join us for “Slices of American Life,” a discussion with short story authors Aaliyah Bilal and Gina Chung moderated by Sarah Dillard.

FREE event! Register now at: worldvoices.pen.org/event/25-american-life/ #worldvoicesfestival

Don't miss this free #PENWorldVoices event in LA. Register today!

2025 World Voices Festival PEN America’s celebration of international literature and writers takes place April 30-May 3 in NYC and LA.

Learn more about all of this year's #PENWorldVoices events here: worldvoices.pen.org #worldvoicesfestival

Join us May 2 in NYC for a free #PENWorldVoices event: “Seen, Heard, & Believed? Exploring Women’s Experiences in Healthcare” with Ariel Gore, Samina Ali, and Tanya Selvaratnam.

Details and tickets: worldvoices.pen.org/event/25-seen-heard-believed/ #worldvoicesfestival

PEN America - The Freedom to Write PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and ...

OOOOOH! RT @penworldvoices: Catch @jeremyoharris and Lynn Nottage (@Lynnbrooklyn) at #penworldvoices Festival as they'll discuss the risks they take–with their stories and their audiences–to stage searing truths about Black lives & American society: http://bit.ly/2Thej6n

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Tomorrow Kehinde Bademosi, Zanele Muholi & Binyavanga Wainaina talk about #LGBT rights in #Africa http://bit.ly/1GXgpKw #PENWorldVoices