Salman Rushdie will deliver the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture at this year’s PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Multiple locations
April 30 – May 6, free – $75
www.pen.org
This year’s PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature celebrates the ninetieth anniversary of the organization, which is dedicated to freedom of speech and human rights around the globe, with a bevy of events beginning April 30 and continuing through May 6. Here are just some of the many highlights: On Monday night, Graydon Carter, Victor S. Navasky, George Packer, and Katha Pollit will pay tribute to the late Christopher Hitchens at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, and Hank Dutt, Onome Ekeh, Emily Howard, and Beth Levin will take part in the U.S. premiere of Kevin Malone’s thirty-five-minute Clockwork Orange operetta at the Top of the Standard. On Tuesday, Mike Daisey will host “Revolutionary Plays Since 2000: The Future of Political Theater” at the CUNY Graduate Center, an evening of readings, discussion, and live music with Lasha Bugadze, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Laila Soliman, and the Civilians. On Wednesday, the amazing trio of Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, and E. L. Doctorow will gather together for a TimesTalk at the Times Center, while the Kronos Quartet presents “Exit Strategies” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Rula Jebreal, Tony Kushner, and Marjane Satrapi. There are more than a dozen programs on Thursday, including Elevator Repair Service performing the site-specific Shuffle, a mash-up of classic novels at NYU’s Bobst Library, screenings of Satrapi’s Persepolis and Chicken with Plums at MoMA, and “Herta Müller on Silence” at Deutsches Haus. On Friday, Jennifer Egan will talk about “How to Create Your Own Rules” with Jacob Weisberg at the New School, seventeen writers will come together for “A Literary Safari” at the Westbeth Center, and the all-day “John Cage: How to Get Started” at Symphony Space will feature David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet, Aleksander Hemon, Etgar Keret, Sonia Sanchez, and audience performers. On Saturday, “An Evening with Doon Arbus, Francine Prose, and Michael Cunningham — and Diane Arbus” consists of readings from the recent biography Diane Arbus: A Chronology and a screening of A Slide Show and Talk by Diane Arbus at MoMA, author-illustrator Brian Selznick will be in conversation with David Levithan at the New School, Egan, Teju Cole, Karl O. Knausgaard, Riikka Pulkkinen, Luc Sante, and others will interact with R. Justin Stewart’s art installation at the Invisible Dog Art Center for “Messiah in Brooklyn,” and Sanchez, Keret, Adam Mansbach, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Marcus Samuelsson, and Tracy K. Smith will discuss “Memory in Harlem” at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The festival concludes on Sunday with Cunningham, Deborah Eisenberg, Daniel Kehlmann, and Edmund White at the Museum of Jewish Heritage for “A Place Out of Time: Gregor von Rezzori’s Bukovina Trilogy” and Salman Rushdie delivering the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture at the Cooper Union, followed by a pop Q&A led by Gary Shteyngart.