PEN Canada celebrates literature, defends freedom of expression and aids writers in peril.
by Brendan de Caires (Executive Director, PEN Canada) Twenty years ago, Florian von Donnersmarck’s dark film “The Lives of Others” showed how easily a nation state – in the form …
This year for Day of the Imprisoned Writer, PEN is calling for urgent international action from November 15 – 29 to protect four writers targeted for their peaceful free expression …
The Graeme Gibson Talk is an annual conversation between writers with expert knowledge of an urgent political, social, cultural or economic issue. The event was established in 2021 to honour …
PEN Canada asked the Iranian-Canadian writer Maria Saba about politics, freedom of expression and the challenges faced by Iranian writers and journalists in diaspora communities. PEN Canada: Iranian lawyers, writers, …
Kern is the author of the recently published YA novel Boys and Girls Screaming (DCB/Cormorant Books), and the upcoming YA novel And Then There Was Us (Tundra/Penguin Random House/2024). He …
Photo: Alice Munro speaks at a 2009 PEN Canada event at the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Written by Bruce Walsh “Smallest photo the Globe ever ran,” we laughed. But …
By Luis Horacio Nájera In the summer of 1995, while working as a crime reporter for El Diario, Ciudad Juárez’s most influential newspaper, my duties as a journalist clashed with …
By Marcello Di Cintio For the past six months, since the most recent horrors in Gaza began, I’ve been using my Gazan friends’ Facebook activity as proof-of-life. I begin to …
This preliminary response was originally published on March 29, 2024 in PEN Canada’s monthly newsletter, as part of the Grace Westcott’s President’s Message. Subscribe to get monthly updates sent to …
Ahead of our Black History Month event, a complementary reading list, with authors from across the diaspora, telling stories of revolution, hidden history, and getting into good trouble. These nine …