In anticipation of the coming new year, Sampsonia Way looks back at the most-watched Writer’s Block video interviews of 2013. The Writer’s Block is an ongoing video series of interviews with visiting writers at City of Asylum/Pittsburgh.
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The Iranian government aggressively blocks online content with an extensive blacklist of URLs and URL keywords. According to an Iran Media Program study, Iran’s digital filter blocks access to pages on one of internet’s most open platforms: Wikipedia. Here’s an infographic that shows key findings.
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Watch a short film on the acclaimed “people’s poet,” Ahmed Fouad Negm, recipient of the 2013 Prince Claus Award. A master poet, fearless social and political critic, Negm died on December 3, a few days before the award ceremony.
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In this segment of The Writer’s Block, the Belgian novelist Ivo Victoria discusses how becoming a writer has made him a reader, how music is his biggest stylistic influence, and how he plays the ‘game between fact and fiction.’
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On December 4, 2013, PEN PRESENTS: “Who’s Afraid of Free Speech?” brought together writers David Simon, E.L. Doctorow, Masha Gessen, Azar Nafisi, and moderator James Fallows of The Atlantic to address challenges to free expression in the digital age.
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“Stories were so important in the world, and I wanted to make up some of these stories.” The 2013 Nobel Lecture in Literature this year is replaced by a pre-recorded video conversation with Alice Munro, Nobel Laureate in Literature.
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In this segment of The Writer’s Block, the acclaimed Egyptian author and journalist Hamdy El-Gazzar discusses writing poetry, incorporating sex as a theme in his work, and the importance of letting the spirit of a text live in translation. El-Gazzar is also Sampsonia Way‘s Egypt columnist.
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A poignant message delivered by the poet Maya Angelou on behalf of the American people in memory of Nelson Mandela who died on December 5.
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This week we remember the influential publisher André Schiffrin who died in Paris on Sunday. In this interview from 2007 Schiffrin discusses his political and economic split with Random House, the experience of starting The New Press, and working with writers like Studs Terkel.
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The Nobel Laureate and British writer Doris Lessing, who died last week at age 94, authored 54 works, including the seminal piece The Golden Notebook. We look back at Lessing’s life with two clips: a fascinating Bill Moyers interview and a video of Lessing discussing her experiences as a writer.
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