Multiple venues
Through May 2
Most events free – $30
www.pen.org
The sixth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature got under way April 26-27, with a panel discussion on diversity on Monday night and the $1,000 gala on Tuesday night, but things really kick into gear for the rest of the week, featuring more than 50 events with 150 writers from 40 countries. The Opening Night Extravaganza at the 92nd St. Y on Wednesday night, “Readings from Around the Globe,” includes the eclectic lineup of Mohsin Hamid, László Krasznahorkai, Yiyun Li, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, Sofi Oksanen, Atiq Rahimi, Salman Rushdie, Alberto Ruy-Sánchez, Patti Smith, Andrzej Stasiuk, and Miguel Syjuco. On Thursday, Barry Gifford, Richard Price, Philippe Djian, and Jean-Philippe Toussaint will discuss “Adaptation: From Page to Screen” at the Skirball Center, directed by Francine Prose. Meanwhile, Quim Monzó, Darryl Pinckney, Roxanna Robinson, and Colm Tóibín will be sharing “New York Stories” at the Morgan Library with moderator Edwin Frank. On April 30, free events include “David Almond and Sofi Oksanen in Conversation with Rakesh Satyal” and “Utopia and Dystopia: Geographies of the Possible” with Inga Kuznetsova, Jonathan Lethem, Eshkol Nevo, and Andrzej Stasiuk, moderated by Albert Mobilio, at the CUNY Graduate Center and “Quim Monzó in Conversation with Robert Coover” at NYU’s Deutsches Haus, while it’ll cost twenty bucks to see “The Great Fire—Shirley Hazzard in Conversation with Richard Ford” at the 92nd St. Y.
Patti Smith will be participating in several events at the sixth annual PEN World Voices Festival (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Saturday’s most exciting event might be “Patti Smith and Jonathan Lethem in Conversation” in the historic Great Hall at the Cooper Union, although the talk that follows it, “Toni Morrison and Marlene van Niekerk in Conversation with Anthony Appiah,” should be pretty fine as well. Le Poisson Rouge will be hosting the fourth annual PEN Cabaret, this year starring Irakli Kakabadze, Natalie Merchant, Ben Okri, Ariel Dorfman, and other special guests, emceed by Rakesh Satyal. And on Sunday, the festival concludes in style with such gatherings as “Roddy Doyle in Conversation with Colum McCann” at FIAF, “A Life in Film” with Melvin Van Peebles and Greg Tate at the Brooklyn Library, “Ariel Dorfman in Conversation with Gabriel Sanders” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and Sherman Alexie delivering the fifth annual Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture at the Cooper Union. There are many more events, with nearly everything $20 and under, or free, except for the cabaret, which is $30.