PEN World Voices speak up

Umberto Eco, above, appears twice at the PEN World Voices Festival in New York.

The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature is on in right now in New York City, with appearances by Salman Rushdie, Bernard-Henri Levy, Jeffrey Eugenides, Francine Prose, Peter Carey, Dinaw Mengestu (who just won the L.A. Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction), and many more.

I know we just had our book festival, but this makes me want to be in New York.

But I am not in New York, so I get the next best thing: a blogorama about the event at MetaxuCafe. The site is gathering posts from smart bloggers who are in attendance, offering everything from a description of Rushdie's opening night remarks ("jolly") to a series of terrific photos. It's a way to catch up with the World Voices festival all in one place, instead of blog by blog.

If you already know enough about the political history of Burma, what's hot in Spanish literature and the real deal with Darfur, eh, there's no use checking it out. But otherwise....

Carolyn Kellogg

Comments

[Thomas McGonigle]

the most common reaction to the PEN thing in NY can be summed up in the following little conversation: did you get that thing from PEN? Yes. Did you? Yes. Throw it away? Yes. Why? Who wants to hear these old farts and then those panels... who cares, really. And did you notice how expensive they are! Does anyone really read Rushdie for instance? Probably not even his editor.