Independent Chinese PEN Center President Tienchi Martin-Liao reviews Dark Road, a new novel by Ma Jian about a couple’s unbalanced fight against China’s cold-blooded one-child policy that is made not to protect, but to destroy, lives.
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Pakistani author Bina Shah discusses the reactions to her novel Slum Child including the views of the “Denialistanis,” individuals who deny accountability and refuse to accept any criticism about Pakistan and its citizens.
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From our ongoing video series The Writer’s Block, a Q&A with Dutch novelist and poet Erik Jan Harmens conducted during his visit last month to City of Asylum Pittsburgh. In his writing Harmens has dealt with the theme of love as well as terrorism.
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In this video Dutch poet Hélène Gelèns reads “Gedicht voor twee stemmen en een klok” (Poem for two voices and a clock) at City of Asylum/Pittsburgh. Hélène Gelèns is a writer of poetry, essays, and short prose.
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“The London Book Fair is not only a cultural event, but also an enormous commercial chance for Britain,” writes Tienchi Martin-Liao, president of Independent Chinese PEN, of China’s massive presence at this year’s installment of the literary festival.
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Israel Centeno reviews Double Lives by Stephen Koch, which looks back at Willi Müzenberg and the Innocents’ Clubs of the early 20th century. Such groups of naïve left intellectual sympathizers of “good despots”, Centeno argues, still abound today.
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Hélène Gelèns shared with Sampsonia Way a previously unpublished poem in English: “What Frays and Blossoms” from the book zet af en zweef (Take off and Float). The original poem in Dutch is also included.
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In this interview novelist Ismet Prcic discusses the seven year process of writing Shards, the sometimes fine line between reality and fiction in the novel, and the ways in which war can restructure the fabric of life as we know it.
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Hovhannes Ishkhanyan author of Demob Day, a literary work detailing life in the country’s army, could face possible fine or imprisonment for up to two or three years after an Armenian military prosecutor opened a case against him. His book has been removed from bookshelves.
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In this interview Khet Mar describes her childhood in a fishing village, the inspiration to become a writer, the political uprising and her life in prison, how she was released, her subsequent disaster relief work, and the risks she took in reporting.
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