Por Signe Hammer
By Signe Hammer
Join coauthor Jennifer Clement to celebrate the publication of PEN International: An Illustrated History—the extraordinary story of PEN’s century-long celebration of literature and defense of free speech around the globe—on Wednesday, December 8 at 4 pm outside in the patio of the Biblioteca. Wearing masks will help protect everyone’s health.
From opposing book-burning and the persecution of writers in Nazi Germany, to supporting imprisoned writers across the world today, PEN has worked to safeguard against censorship and self-censorship. The extraordinary writers who have been PEN cases include: Federico García Lorca, Stefan Zweig, Salman Rushdie, Nobel Prizewinners Wole Soyinka and Svetlana Alexievich, Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and the journalists Anna Politkovskaya, Russian, and Hrant Dink, Turkish-Armenian, both ultimately murdered. To tell the stories of key moments of PEN’s history over the last 100 years, the book includes more than 500 pictures, letters, documents, posters and maps.
Jennifer Clement is the first woman to have been elected president of PEN International and the author of such highly regarded novels as Prayers for the Stolen and Gun Love, as well as the cult classic memoir Widow Basquiat. In 2019, Gun Love was one of Time magazine’s top 10 books, a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book and a National Book Award finalist. Clement has published several books of poetry, including The Next Stranger, with an introduction by W. S. Merwin, and, with her sister Barbara Sibley, is cofounder and director of The San Miguel Poetry Week. She lives in San Miguel and is a member of Mexico’s prestigious Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte and of PEN San Miguel.
Joining Jennifer to tell us about the fascinating history of San Miguel’s own chapter of PEN is Lucina Kathmann, International PEN vice-president and current treasurer of San Miguel PEN, as well as the author most recently of the essay collection Private Spaces, Public Places.
Nobel Prizewinning author Toni Morrison said of PEN International, “My respect for this organization has no borders. PEN has been so fierce, so consistent and ferocious in its efforts that it is hard to ignore their worldwide impact.” For more information, visit PEN San Miguel’s website at: sanmiguelpen.com.
