The fourteenth annual PEN World Voices Festival kicks off on Monday in New York City. From April 16–22, more than 165 writers from around the world will participate in conversations, readings, translation slams, and performances on this year’s theme: Resist and Reimagine.
We’re looking forward to hosting an event to mark the publication of our April issue of Argentine literature. Join us on Wednesday, April 18 at 7pm at Book Culture (LIC location) for Beyond Borges: Argentina’s Unsung Literary Greats. WWB’s Eric Becker will moderate a conversation featuring Argentinean writer Sergio Chejfec, editor Edwin Frank, and translators Esther Allen, Heather Cleary, and Charlotte Whittle.
And on Saturday, April 21 at 7pm, we are partnering with SLICE Literary for the festival’s Lit Crawl. WWB’s Jessie Chaffee and SLICE’s Randy Brown Winston will host a Multiligual Most Exquisite Corpse reading of a story stitched together by writers Basma Abdel Aziz, Maria Cabrera Callís, Sergio Chejfec, and Petra Hůlová. They’ll be joined by their translators Elisabeth Jaquette, Mary Ann Newman, Heather Cleary, and Alex Zucker.
MONDAY, APRIL 16
Del Duma/Tell Them About Me!
6:00pm; Segal Theatre, GC CUNY, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY
Staged reading of a play written by Mihaela Drăgan, translated by Claudia Campeanu, and directed by George Eli.
Intractable Woman
8:00pm; Segal Theatre, GC CUNY, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY
Staged reading of a play written by Stefano Massini, translated by Paula Wing, and directed by Lee Sunday Evans.
TUESDAY, APRIL 17
Us Too
7:00pm; Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 East 3rd Street, New York, NY
With Dunya Mikhail, Tishani Doshi, Maxine Beneba Clarke, and Mona Eltahawy.
Poland Spring
7:00pm; Poets House, 10 River Terrace, New York, NY
With Clare Cavanagh, Alissa Valles, Ryszard Krynicki, and Edward Hirsch.
Playing with Fire: Theater in Translation as Resistance
7:00pm; Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY
With Jeremy Tiang, Michael Eskin, Agnes Walder, and Martin Puchner.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18
Literary Quest: Tenement Museum Edition
6:30pm; Lower East Side Tenement Museum, 103 Orchard Street, New York, NY
With André Aciman, Jenny Zhang, Esmeralda Santiago, Lauren Hilgers, Penny Arcade, Muna Tseng, Ping Chong, Ibi Zoboi, and Akwaeke Emezi.
Beyond Borges: Argentina’s Unsung Literary Greats
7:00pm; Book Culture, 26-09 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY
With Sergio Chejfec, Esther Allen, Heather Cleary, Charlotte Whittle, and Edwin Frank. Moderated by WWB’s Eric M. B. Becker.
THURSDAY, APRIL 19
Resonances
6:00pm; Newman Conference Center, Room 750, Baruch College, 151 East 25th Street, New York, NY
With Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Alicia Kopf, Xiaolu Guo, Aminatta Forna, and Bridgett Davis.
Being Dag Solstad
6:30pm; Shakespeare and Co., 939 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY
With Lydia Davis, John Freeman, and Dag Solstad.
Cry, the Beloved Country
7:00pm; Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY
With Ryszard Krynicki, Hwang Sok-Yong, Négar Djavadi, Serhiy Zhadan, Marcos Aguinis, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Chip Rolley.
Translation Slam
7:00pm; Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 East 3rd Street, New York, NY
With Maria Cabrera Callís, Mary Ann Newman, Bonnie Huie, Jeremy Tiang, Michael Moore, Amanda Lee Koe, Mara Faye Lethem, and Un Sio San.
Dystopian Fiction: Future Present Tense
7:00pm; Downtown Art, 70 East 4th Street, New York, NY
With Basma Abdel Aziz, Leni Zumas, Omar El Akkad, and Ram Devineni.
FRIDAY, APRIL 20
Literary Quest: Westbeth Edition
6:30pm; Westbeth Center for the Arts, Westbeth Gallery, 55 Bethune Street, New York, NY
With Nachoem Wijnberg, Basma Abdel Aziz, Trifonia Melibea Obono, Rupert Thomson, Ashley Hay, Susan Kuklin, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Sharon Bala, Demian Vitanza, Alicia Kopf, Hadi Nasiri, Kanchana Ugbabe, Ayse Kulin, Mariko Tamaki, and Leni Zumas.
Borders of Our Imagination
7:00pm; Instituto Cervantes, 211 East 49th Street, New York, NY
With Valeria Luiselli, Francisco Cantú, and Amalia Rojas.
Where Do We Go from Here?
7:00pm; Brooklyn Museum Auditorium, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY
With Gregory Pardlo, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Jelani Cobb.
Havana with Leonardo Padura
7:00pm; Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 East 3rd Street, New York, NY
With Leonardo Padura and Mark Kurlansky.
Unlived Lives
7:00pm; Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY
With Anderson Tepper, Georgi Gospodinov, Hwang Sok-yong, and Petra Hůlová.
Blurring Borders: Reimagining Strangers
7:30pm; La Maison Française, 16 Washington Mews, New York, NY
With Négar Djavadi, Raquel Abend, Ibi Zaboi, and Rebecca Falkoff.
SATURDAY, APRIL 21
Take Back the Net: Fighting Online Hate
12:00pm; Cooper Union Rose Auditorium, 41 Cooper Square, New York, NY
With Porochista Khakpour, Anita Sarkeesian, Katy Glenn Bass, and Yassmin Abdel Magied.
Translation and the Power(s) of Language
12:00pm; Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY
With Mary Ann Newman, Trifonia Melibea Obono, Alicia Kopf, Judith Santopietro, and Rubén Ríos-Avila.
Liminal States
2:30pm; Subculture, 45 Bleecker Street, New York, NY
With Négar Djavadi, Akwaeke Emezi, and Kanchana Ugbabe.
The Trick of Translation
5:00pm; Subculture, 45 Bleecker Street, New York, NY
With Domenico Starnone, Michael Reynolds, and Jhumpa Lahiri.
A Multilingual Most Exquisite Corpse (a Lit Crawl NYC event)
7:00pm; Think Coffee, 248 Mercer Street, New York, NY
Presented by Words Without Borders and SLICE Literary and featuring Basma Abdel Aziz, Maria Cabrera Callís, Sergio Chejfec, Petra Hůlová, Elisabeth Jaquette, Mary Ann Newman, Heather Cleary, and Alex Zucker. Hosted by WWB’s Jessie Chaffee and SLICE’s Randy Brown Winston.
Pablo Neruda: The Poetry of Resistance
7:00pm; Poets House, 10 River Terrace, New York, NY
With Idra Novey, Cecilia Vicuña, Forrest Gander, and Mark Eisner.
Legacy of an LGBTQ Countercultural Icon
7:30pm; Dixon Place, 161A Christie Street, New York, NY
With Ari Larissa Heinrich, Bonnie Huie, and Eileen Myles.
SUNDAY, APRIL 22
Dreaming Out Loud
2:30pm; Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 East 3rd Street, New York, NY
With Álvaro Enrigue.
America, Real and Imagined
3:00pm; Fisher Hillman Studio, BAM, 321 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY
With Francisco Cantú, Joy Harjo, Sarah Gerard, and Lesley Nneka Arimah.
