April 30, 2007
PEN World Voices Festival - The PEN Cabaret
Musician, poet, painter, and preformance artist, Oliver Lake has created chamber pieces for the Arditti and Flux String Quartets; arranged music for Bjork, Lou Reed, and A Tribe Called Quest; and collaborated with poets Amiri Baraka and Ntozake Shange, choreogrphers Ron Brown and Marlies Yearby, and actress/author Anna Deavere Smith. He had done jazz-poetry collaborations with Huang Xiang since 2004.
Huang Xiang was imprisoned six times over 12 years in China and tortured for hiw work, which was completely banned. He has lived in exile in the United States since 1997. A bilingual edition of his selected poetry was published in 2003. In 2004 he became the writer-in-residence for City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, and he continues to live in Pittsburgh.
Guillermo Arriaga is a nobelist and screenwriter best known for his collaborations with director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, such as Amores Perros and, most recently, Babel, which earned Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. His novels include The Night Buffalo, A Sweet Scent of Death, and The Guillotine Squad.
Saul Williams is the author of four collections of poetry: The Dead Emcee Scrolls, said the shotgun to the head, She, and The Seventh Octave. He has also made appearances on the shows Girlfriends and HRB's Def Poetry Jam.
Sam Shepard has written 45 plays, 12 of which have won Obie Awards. In 1979, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Buried Child. He is also an Oscar-nominated actor and winner of the Golden Palm Award at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for his screenplay for Paris, Texas.
Patti Smith's album Horses was folowed by Radio Ethiopia, Easter, Dream of Life, Gone Again, and Trampin'. She is also an acclaimed poet and her publications include Witt, Babel, Wool-Gathering, The Coreal Sea, and Patti Smith Complete: Lyrics, Notes, and Reflections.
Posted by nycphoto at 8:02 PM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2007
PEN World Voices Festival - Literary Thrillers
Discussion of the new face of interntional high-tensile fiction with acclained mystery writer S.J. Rozan.
S.J. Rozan is the author of 10 crime nobels. Her novels and short stories have won crime-writing awards such as the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity. Her most recent work, In This Rain, takes the reader from the streets of Harlem to the hals of City Hall.
Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett (Spain) was awarded the Feminino Lumen prize for best female writer in Spain. Her book Dog Day is the first installment of her Inspector Petra Delicado mystery series to be published in English.
Henry Chang's debut novel, Chinatown Beat, features Detective Jack Yu. Through Yu, Chang presents us with the darker side of New York's Chinatown.
Kenji Jasper began his writing career as a journalist, publishing his first article while working at an intern for the Washington Informer at the tender age of 13. Snow, the second novel in his Dark trilogy, has just been released. In it, Jasper explores the mean streets of Wasington DC.
Posted by nycphoto at 8:42 PM | Comments (0)
PEN World Voices Festival - Reporting on Iraq, Living in Terror: Carolin Emcke & Mark Danner
As a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, Harper's, and many other publications, Mark Danner has covered Central America, Haiti, the Balkans, Iraq, and the Middle East. His books on politics and foreign policy include The Road to Illegitimacy, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Graid, and the War on Terror, and The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War's Buried History. As a staff writer for the foreign news desk of Der Spiegel, Carolin Emcke has written about war crimes and human rights violations in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Colombia. She is the author of Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter. These award-winning journalists discuss the violent world we live in and the dangers one faces in reporting on it.
Posted by nycphoto at 8:09 PM | Comments (0)
PEN World Voices Festival - Conversation: Siri Hustvedt & Margriet de Moor, with Adam Gopnik
A conversation with Siri Hustvedt and Margriet De Moor hosted by Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker.
Margriet de Moor is the award-winning Dutch author of Duke of Egypt and The Kreutzer Sonata.
Siri Hustvedt's (Norway/United States) work has been published in The Paris Review. She is also the author of a book of poetry and several novels, including The Blindfold, THe Enchantment of Lily Dahl, and What I Loved.
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PEN World Voices Festival - Moving Stories: Writers on Film
Each of these writers has authored books that were later made into films. Together, they discuss the pleasures and trials of the process and what happens to literature along the way.
Gener Seymour is the film critic for Newsday.
Dany Laferriere's (Haiti/Canada) short stories served as the basis of the film Heading South. He is a novelist, essayist, poet, and journalist. His first novel, How to Make Love to a Negro, was adapted into a screenplay and earned a Genie Award nomination for best adapted screenplay in 1990.
Niccolo Ammaniti's (Italy) novel I'm Not Scared was made into a film of the same name by Gabriele Salvatores. He was the youngest-ever winner of the Viareggio-Repaci prize for this novel as well. His latest novel in English is I'll Steal You Away.
Steve Martin (United States) adapted his novella Shopgirl and then acted in the film. He's also written The Pleasure of My Company and the collection of comic pieces, Pure Drivel. His work frequently appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times.
Susan Orlean (United States) saw herself played by Meryl Streep when her story about orchid enthusiasts became the film Adaptation. She's been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992 and her articles have also appeard in Outside, Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Esquire.
Posted by nycphoto at 5:31 PM | Comments (0)
PEN World Voices Festival - Black & Blue: Mediterranean Noir
Colin Harrison, stepping in for Aice Seybold, takes us on a tour of the dark passages of Mediterranean Noir. Tonight's panelists discuss why this is one of the most important and popular literary movements to emerge from Europe in the last decade and how they use a special kind of local crime fiction to explore global themes.
Colin Harrison (United States) is the deputy editor of Harper's Magazine and the author of Break and Enter, Bodies Electric, Manhattan Nocturne, and Afterburn.
Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett (Spain) was awarded the Feminino Lumen prize for best female writer in Spain. Her book Dog Day is the first installment of her Inspector Petra Delicado mystery series to be published in English.
Carlo Lucarelli (Italy) is a journalist, playwright, and screenwriter and has written 11 noir novels and colections of stories, including Almost Blue and Day After Day. He lives in Bologna, where he teaches writing, edits and online magazine, and sings in a post-punk band.
Massimo Carlotto's (Italy) first novel, Fugitive, was made into a film in 2003. Fugitive is based on the years he spent on the run after being convicted of a murder he says he didn't commit. Two of his most recent novels, The Godbye Kiss and Death's Dark Abyss, are also being made into films.
Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of former Algerian officer turned French novelist Mohanmmed Moulessehoul. His prolific body of work has been published in 20 languages in all, and includes The Swallows of Kabul and The Attack. He received the Prix des Libraires in 2006.
Posted by nycphoto at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)
PEN World Voices Festival - Conversation
Per Petterson (Norway) shared the 2006 Independent London Foreign Fiction Prize with is translator, Anne Born, for his Out Stealing Horses.
Marilynne Robinson (United States) is the author of Gilead, which won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, for Housekeeping.
Radhika Jones is managing editor of The Paris Review.
Posted by nycphoto at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2007
PEN World Voices Festival - Imaginary Geographies
These writers discuss how, and especially, why they invent - and re-invent - cities, towns, countries, and homes, and consider the responsibility of fiction to go beyond the merely real.
Deborah Treisman, New Yorker fiction editor and moderator of the panel.
Arthur Japin (Netherlands) studied theater in Amsterdam and London and spent many years acting on stage, screen, and television. His first novel, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi, appeared in thirteen languages and is now being made into an opera and a film.
Daniel Alarcon has been published in The New Yorker, Salon, and Harpers. He was born in Lima and raised in the United States. His short story collection, War by Candlelight, was a finalist for the 2006 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.
Tatyana Tolstoy's work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, the New Republic, and other periodicals.
Posted by nycphoto at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
PEN World Voices Festival - Gritty Realism
These writers describe lives that are hard and often brief. People survive on the streets and by their wits - generally with a gun in hand or in their face. Though short on romance, there is love, redemption, and an honest attempt to reflect real places and conditions in these books. Their authors discuss the political, social, and economic forces that have shifted the focus in Latin writing from fantastical to the gritty and urban.
Patricia Mello's (Brazil) novels include The Killer, Inferno, and Black Waltz.
Jorge Franco's (Colombia) first novel won the Ciudad de Pereira National Novel Competition. His novel, Rosario Tijeras, was awarded the Hammett International Prize and has been translated into fourteen languages and successfully adapted into a film.
Daniel Alarcon's (Peru/United States) first novel, Lost City Radio, was published this year. The Britiah journal Granta recently name him one of the Best Young American Novelists.
Guillermo Arriaga (Mexico) is a novelist and screenwriter. His most recent colaboration with Alejandro Gonzalez on the film Babel earned him an Academy Award nomination. His novels include The Night Buffalo, A Sweet Scent of Death, and The Guillotine Squad.
Posted by nycphoto at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2007
PEN World Voices Festival - Town Hall Readings: Writing Home
Salman Rushdie
Steve Martin
Pia Tafdrup
Don DeLillo
Kiran Desai
Alain Mabanckou
Tatyana Tolstaya
Saadi Youssef
Neil Gaiman
Nadine Gordimer
Posted by nycphoto at 4:11 PM | Comments (3)
April 25, 2007
PEN World Voices Festival - History and the Truth of Fiction
Colum McCann (Ireland/United States) moderated the panel. He is the author of several story collections and nobels. His short film, Everything in This Country Must, was nominated for an Oscar in 2005. His most recent novel is Zoli.
Arthur Japin's (Netherlands) historical novels include The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boach, In Lucia's Eyes, and The Big World. And he gives an absolutely mesmerizing reading of his work.
Imma Monso's (Spain) novels include You Never Know, Like a Holiday, and A Real Character.
Laila Lalami's (Morocco/United States) first novel, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, was published in 2005. She might also be known to you for her excellent blog Moorish Girl
Michael Walner (Germany) is an actor, screenwriter, and the author of the novel April in Paris.
Posted by nycphoto at 5:59 PM | Comments (0)