Writers Gather to Discuss the Role of Literature in Times of War and Isolation

In 1939, the American journalist Dorothy Thompson, who was expelled from Germany after reporting on the rise of the Nazi motion, convened an emergency summit of writers in response to the violence unfolding in Europe. Because the chief of PEN America, a literary and free speech group, Thompson referred to as on writers to unite in opposition to fascism and threats to free expression. The occasion drew 500 writers from 30 nations.

“In a lot of the world at present the phrase itself has been made captive,” Thompson advised the assembled writers. “Those that would free it accomplish that on the threat of their lives.”

This spring, in response to the conflict in Ukraine, PEN America is holding one other “Emergency World Voices Congress of Writers” impressed by that first gathering to discover how literature and literary figures may help bridge geographic and cultural rifts, encourage dialogue and defend free speech in instances of turmoil and brutality.

The emergency summit — which is anticipated to incorporate greater than 100 writers, amongst them Salman Rushdie, Gary Shteyngart, Ayad Akhtar and Jennifer Egan — is a part of PEN’s annual World Voices Competition, a sequence of literary occasions scheduled to happen from Could 11 to Could 14 in New York Metropolis and Los Angeles.

“On this second of chaos and violence, we will handle what the position of the author is, as we face down the rise of authoritarianism, disinformation run amok, social fissures which can be widening right here on this nation, and a surge in e book banning and threats in opposition to free speech,” Suzanne Nossel, chief government of PEN America, mentioned in an interview.

On the identical day because the summit, the Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov, who’s the president of PEN Ukraine and has been documenting the grim toll of Russia’s invasion, will ship a speech that may handle threats to democracy and free expression.

The World Voices Competition was created in 2005 with the intention of fostering dialogue between authors from all over the world to counter isolationism and xenophobia in america after the Sept. 11 assaults.

Within the years since, the annual occasion has drawn lots of of worldwide and American authors to debate themes equivalent to gender and energy, political unrest and resistance, and threats to privateness and free speech.

Panels at this 12 months’s competition will handle how literature can confront points like local weather change, immigration, gender equality, nationalism and the way forward for democracy. Greater than 80 writers are anticipated to take part, together with Sheila Heti, Leïla Slimani, Mieko Kawakami, Nadifa Mohamed and Abdulrazak Gurnah, who gained the Nobel Prize in Literature final 12 months.

The competition will conclude with an occasion highlighting the dramatic rise in e book bans in colleges and libraries throughout the nation, that includes readings from banned and controversial books by literary icons like Toni Morrison, Artwork Spiegelman, Kurt Vonnegut and others.

This 12 months’s gathering marks the primary time for the reason that begin of the pandemic that the competition will happen in individual, after PEN held it on-line within the spring of 2020 and 2021.

“Isolationism took on a brand new which means throughout Covid,” Nossel mentioned. “It’s extraordinarily necessary to carry folks collectively nose to nose and contemplate, amid all of the questions we’re grappling with now, how literature can play its position as a bridge throughout geography, ideology and cultures.”