PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature presents
Revolutionaries in the Arab World
Featuring Rula Jebreal (Miral), Issandr El Amrani (The Arabist), Adbelkader Benali, Alex Nunns (editor of Tweets from Tahrir), and Abdellah Taia
Wednesday, April 27, 7:30 p.m.
92nd Street Y, Unterberg Poetry Center, 1395 Lexington Ave., New York City
This panel will explore the sweeping political changes in the Arab world. Hear from experts and on-the-ground bloggers how social media and citizen journalism galvanize the revolution. In the borderless world of the Internet, where revolutionary ideas spread at lightning speed, will other despotic regimes collapse? Which ones? And how does an autocracy transition into a democracy, and at what cost? Alex Nunns, editor of Tweets from Tahrir (O/R Books) — a collection of key tweets from the activists who brought heady days of revolution to Egypt in early 2011 — will be joined by Palestinian author/journalist Rula Jebreal (Miral), blogger Issandr El Amrani (The Arabist), Moroccan writer Abdellah Taia, and Moroccan-Dutch writer Adbelkader Benali to tackle these urgent questions. For more info
Tickets: $20/$15 PEN Members, students with valid ID. Call (866) 811-4111 or visit ovationstix
Co-sponsored by the 92 Street Y, Unterberg Poetry Center
PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, New York City, April 25-May 1, 2011 – More than 100 writers from 40 nations will convene in New York City to celebrate the power of the writer’s voice as a bold and vital element both on the page and in public discourse. Chaired by Salman Rushdie and created in2001 as one means of combating American cultural isolationism, the Festival will include panels, lectures, readings, one-on-one conversations, and readings at venues across the city, including the festival’s hubs — The Standard, New York and the High Line. The stellar line-up of authors will include Gioconda Belli, Harold Bloom, Ernesto Cardenal, Deborah Eisenberg, Jonathan Franzen, Malcolm Gladwell, Hanif Kureishi, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Andrea Levy, Amélie Nothomb, Cynthia Ozick, Elif Shafak, Wallace Shawn, Vladimir Sorokin, Wole Soyinka, Irvine Welsh, and Edmund White, among many others. Check out our complete schedule of events