Multiple venues
April 30 – May 7, free – $35
www.worldvoices.pen.org
The thirteenth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature turns its attention to a hot-button issue in America and around the world, taking a hard look at gender and power. The festival runs April 30 to May 7, featuring panel discussions, lectures, readings, plays, Q&As, film screenings, literary pub crawls, and more. The curators for this year’s festival, which explores bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia as well, are Susan Bernofsky, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Kim Chan, Ram Devineni, Mona Eltahawy, Marlon James, Saeed Jones, Meg Lemke, Valeria Luiselli, Paul Morris, Chinelo Okparanta, Steph Opitz, Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, and Andy Tepper, chaired by Rob Spillman. “PEN America launched the World Voices Festival after 9/11 at a moment when the U.S. was becoming cut off from the rest of the globe,” PEN America executive director Suzanne Nossel said in a statement. “Amid visa bans and an America First foreign policy, World Voices is now an important antidote to an America at risk of only talking to itself, fanning baseless fears, and damaging relations with allies and people around the world. This year’s festival will center on both celebration and mobilization, rallying around PEN America’s mission to defend free expression and enable the breadth of voices vital to an open marketplace of ideas.” Below is one highlight for each day; also among the more than 150 participants from 40 countries are Carrie Brownstein, Patti Smith, Salman Rushdie, Laurie Anderson, Rita Mae Brown, Jessica Hagedorn, José Emilio Pacheco, Eileen Myles, Trevor Noah, Eiko Otake, and Ani DiFranco.
Sunday, April 30
Festival Prelude! A House Divided, the Great Hall, the Cooper Union, free with advance reservations, 3:00
Monday, May 1
World Voices: International Play Festival 2017, featuring Patricia Cornelius’s Shit (4:00), Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s Take Out the Rubbish, Sasha (6:00), and Mîrza Metîn’s Hungry Dogs (8:00), CUNY Segal Theatre, free
Tuesday, May 2
Exposure: Politics, Sex, and Power, with Rokudenashiko, Ali Asgar, and Mohsen Namjoo, moderated by Alexandra Munroe, Dixon Place, $15, 7:00
Wednesday, May 3
Portraying Gay Male Life Today, with Tobin Low, Andrew Solomon, Garth Greenwell, Ali Asgar, and Edouard Louis, the Greene Space at WNYC, $15, 7:00
Thursday, May 4
Gender, Power, and Authoritarianism in the Dystopian Age, with Marge Piercy, Alice Sola Kim, Namwali Sperwell, and Basma Abdel Aziz, New School Auditorium, $15, 6:30
Friday, May 5
Pen vs. Sword: Satire vs. the State, with Mo Rocca, Abdourahman Waberi, Aleksandar Hemon, Masha Gessen, and others, moderated by Elissa Schappel, St. Josephs College, $10, 7:00
Saturday, May 6
Women in Ink, with Roz Chast, Liana Finck, Rayma Suprani, and Emily Flake, moderated by Liza Donnelly, Dixon Place, $20, 12 noon
Saturday, May 6
and
Sunday, May 7
The Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture: Masha Gessen and Samantha Bee, the Great Hall, the Cooper Union, $35, 6:00
Sunday, May 7
Unapologetically Afro-Latina, with Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, Nancy Morejon, Magdalena Albizu, and Amanda Alcantara, Apollo Theater, free with advance reservations, 4:15