Dear Friends,

Welcome once again to the latest edition of the International PEN
newsletter. It is a real pleasure to have the opportunity to update you on
our work and I do hope that you will share this communication with all of
the PEN membership as an important way of ensuring everyone has the
opportunity to feel connected to our world community.

It is an extremely busy time at the International PEN headquarters with
plans being finalised for the forthcoming Writers in Prison Committee
Conference and the inaugural International PEN festival of world
literature, both of which take place in April. We are extremely grateful to
our hosts Scottish PEN for the WIPC meeting, for all their hard work in
preparation. The London festival Free the Word! will take place at the
National Theatre, South Bank Centre, Young Vic and Old Vic theatres from 11
- 13 April. The festival will be the lead event in a growing annual
programme of International PEN festivals and events, which we will be
staging around the world, linked by a common theme. In 2008, the theme,
proposed by Hong Kong English Speaking PEN, is The Writer Next Door. In the
next few weeks, we will be writing to eligible PEN Centres to join us in an
application to the European Union to stage a series of parallel festivals
from 2009. We look forward to hearing from you with regard to this.

The focus area for International PEN in 2008 is Latin America and the
Caribbean and we will be holding a meeting in May to establish the areas
where Centres would like to develop work with International PEN. We expect
that this may also include the development of our international literary
programme, but look forward to learning what other ambitions the Centres
have for the region.

Thank you to those of you who were generous enough to respond to our
request for volunteers to assist us with translating key documents such as
the newsletter into French and Spanish; your support is truly appreciated.
However, with activity increasing and a growing number of documents
produced, all support would be welcome to assist us in meeting our ambition
of communicating in the three official languages of International PEN
whenever possible.

With best wishes,
Caroline McCormickExecutive Director

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INTERNATIONAL PEN NEWS

International Programmes
The International Programmes team has begun work with the Centres in Latin
America and the Caribbean, the focus region for 2008. Fourteen Centres will
attend a regional meeting, which is now being planned to take place in May,
to learn more about the Centres’ work and identify areas where they would
like to develop work with International PEN.

Work will continue with the African Centres in 2008 on programmes to bring
about change through engagement with reading and writing and Centre
development. A series of guidance notes have been developed in response to
working with the Centres in key areas including planning, budgeting and
proposal writing. These will be made available to all Centres on the new
International PEN website in March.

News and updates of the work of the International Programmes team will also
feature on the site in the International Programmes Section.

Literary Events
Free the Word!, International PEN’s inaugural festival of world literature,
is now entering the final phases of preparation. Writers and audiences from
around the world are about to come together in London, as well as through
PEN International Magazine and the International PEN website, to debate,
reflect upon, discuss and celebrate a series of events that respond to
International PEN’s annual theme, The Writer Next Door, that will link all
literary events in 2008.

And what better way to celebrate a brand new literary festival than with a
theme that encompasses everybody? The Writer Next Door, proposed by Fred
Armentrout, President of English-Speaking Hong Kong PEN, does just that and
poses so many questions into the bargain. Just who is this writer? Does he
or she speak the same language as me? What are the shared values in this
republic of words? And, taking our theme rather more literally, is that
door open or closed? Here is what Fred wrote on the subject: ‘The deepest
and most direct way for one neighbour to know another is to have access to
their most personal thoughts, which is the special gift writers give to
their own cultures and languages and, in translation, to the world.’ This
is the essence of Free the Word!

This first edition of Free the Word! has a crucial role to play - not only
in establishing a world class literary festival that embodies all that
International PEN stands for, but also in ensuring that we have the strong
foundations from which to go on and establish other International PEN
festivals around the world. In the process, we hope that the impact of our
festivals will be considerable in encouraging heightened interest in
literature from all cultures, particularly in translation, and in dialogue
between those cultures.

Here are just a few of the highlights we thought you might like to hear
about. At Free the Word! 2008 you can . tap on the door of one of the
world’s smallest languages (one of our Found in Translation events with
Icelandic author Sjón), or knock on one of its largest (International
Poetry with Chinese writer Yang Lian); peer into that legendary Cairo
landmark, The Yacoubian Building with Egyptian writer and dentist Alaa Al
Aswaany; wander down the library of the imagination in The Rights of the
Reader with Azar Nafisi, Alberto Manguel and Daniel Pennac; trace the lines
of aboriginal myth and land rights in Sacred Land with Alexis Wright;
engage with literary dissidents such as Francisco Goldman in A Short
History of Sedition; be provoked by our Insulting Literary Cabaret; or,
quite simply, be enchanted by Salman Rushdie.

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COMMITTEE NEWS

Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee
February 14th was World Short Story Day, which celebrates and gives a
platform to writers from all over the globe working in this form. The
Turkish writer and member of the Turkish PEN Centres, Selim Ileri, has
composed a short piece to commemorate it. This can be found on the
Diversity website http://www.diversity.org.mk. There is a special Translation and
Linguistic Rights Committee meeting on translation to take place in
Istanbul from 9 - 11 May. Also, ‘Eyes to see otherwise’, the bilingual
anthology of selected poems of Homero Aridjis, President Emeritus of
International PEN, has been made available for the Diversity Collection.
For more information on these projects and the Committee in general, visit
http://www.diversity.org.mk (http://www.diversity.org.mk/)

Women Writers Committee
The fourth volume of the IPWWC anthology of women writers, ‘Our Voice’, is
currently being collated and will be available later this year. The Women
Writers Committee of Peruvian PEN and the Spanish Cultural Center held an
event in homage to the poet Carmen Luz Bejarano last October. This was the
fourth in Peruvian PEN’s cycle of lectures about Peruvian women writers of
the 20th century.

Writers for Peace Committee
Edvard Kovac, the Chair of the Writers for Peace Committee, gave a speech
about intercultural dialogue as a way to encourage sharing of knowledge and
as a basis for civil society, at the opening ceremony of Slovenia’s
Presidency of the Council of the European Union in January. It is available
on the International PEN website.
The 40th International PEN conference, organised by the Slovene PEN Centre
and the Writers for Peace Committee at Bled in Slovenia, will take place
from 26th to 30th March 2008. The general theme of the first two round
tables will be ‘What is European consciousness?’. The first round table
will deal with philosophical and sociological aspects of the theme, while
the second will concentrate on literary, cultural and civilisational
aspects. The theme of the Peace Committee round table will be ‘An Ethical
Attitude to History as a Source of Peace’.

Writers in Prison Committee
International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee July to December 2008 case
list is now available to download at
http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/index.php?pid=33&aid=
747&type=current. The final report on criminal defamation and insult was
produced, focussing on Africa. The American, Canadian and Independent
Chinese PEN Centres launched a campaign monitoring and protesting against
the imprisonment of writers and journalists in China in the run up to the
Beijing Olympics. For more information got to
http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1527
(http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1527). Other centres have also launched
actions; Chip Rolley of Sydney PEN and Kristen Schnider of Swiss-German
Centre have initiated a poetry relay. They are encouraging Centres to
translate into their own language the poem ‘June’ by the Shi Tao,
imprisoned for an email he sent, and to relay the poem virtually from
Centre to Centre. For more information, email (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
(mailto:chiprolley@pacific.net) Registration for the 7th International
Writers in Prison Committee Conference in Glasgow 4 - 6 April 2008, has now
closed. If you intend to go, but you have not yet registered, contact
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
(mailto:sara.whyatt@internationalpen.org.uk)

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NEWS AND EVENTS FROM PEN CENTRES

We know that Centres love hearing news about other Centres and that sharing
work is important and can be useful for everyone. International PEN would
really like to hear from all Centres to ensure that the Centre News section
of this newsletter has as much information about your work as possible.
Please contact Emily Bromfield (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
(mailto:emily.bromfield@internationalpen.org.uk) in English, French or
Spanish, with anything that you feel may be of interest or helpful for your
fellow PEN members. Centres will also have the opportunity to share even
more news and details about their work when the new website is launched at
the end of March.

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NEWS FROM ELSEWHERE

The Global Short Story Competition is run every month, organised by Certys
Limited, based in Darlington, County Durham. Writers wishing to find out
more about the competition, or send entries, should visit
http://www.globalshortstories.net (http://www.globalshortstories.net/)

The Nordic Translation Conference
The Nordic Translation Conference took place from March 6 - 8 2008. This
was the first conference of its kind, the first to focus solely on the
Nordic languages and their translation. The conference looked at literary
and non-literary translation, both between various Nordic languages, and
also between English and the Nordic languages. Nordic here refers to
Danish, Faroese, Finnish, Greenlandic, Icelandic, Norwegian, any of the
Sámi dialects, and Swedish.

Red Zone: Five Bloody Years in Baghdad is an account of daily life for
Iraqis and the story of Ahmed Ali, a tourist guide turned translator, who
assisted British journalist Oliver Poole, the author of this book. Part of
the proceeds of Red Zone will go to International PEN, who helped Ahmed Ali
and his family flee Iraq for America. For more information visit
http://www.reportagepress.com (http://www.reportagepress.com/)

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The next newsletter will be sent in April 2008. PEN Centres: please send
your news for inclusion to Emily Bromfield,
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
(mailto:emily.bromfield@internationalpen.org.uk)

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International PEN is the world writers association. Originally established
in 1921, it became a charity in 2007. International PEN aims to promote
literature, uphold human rights - particularly freedom of expression - and
to develop a community of writers in support of these aims. It has
consultative status at the United Nations and UNESCO.

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International PEN, Brownlow House, 50/51 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6ER,
e.mail: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (mailto:info@internationalpen.org.uk)
website: http://www.internationalpen.org.uk
(http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/)International PEN is a registered
charity, number 1010627

To find out more visit http://www.internationalpen.org.uk
(http://www.internationalpen.org.uk)