Queer x Kenyan x Communities
Cherrie Kandie talks about the aftermath of being shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing for 'Sew My Mouth', a story about a lesbian couple in Kenya.
PEN Transmissions
Articles
Editorial: Transmitting the Future
When Utopia Becomes Tangible
Jen Calleja discusses practical responses to sexual harassment and assault in (literary) spaces, and how utopian hope can inspire and inform tactics for real change.
Editorial: past futures
Moth Eyes
Ho Sok Fong imagines the future in a country where houses have warped into funnels, the horizon has tilted, and talking openly about what is happening has become taboo.
Faces Afraid of the Mirror
Zehra Doğan imagines the future: it is 3219 and art is a crime. Mirrors are banned. States who provide welfare to their citizens are brought before the European Court of Human Rights. And a country that imprisons its artists makes more and more money from tourists...
Living History: a Conversation with Kapka Kassabova
Kapka Kassabova explores the intersection between past, present and future in her work, and in particular how ancestral legacies and ideologies linger on. We spoke to her about the Balkans, belonging and how to avoid clichés.
Channeling the rage: an interview with Meena Kandasamy
Meena Kandasamy is a writer, translator, activist and feminist who challenges comfortable notions of Western feminism, capitalism, and imperialism in her work. We talked to her per email about translating Tamil writers, nationalism and feminism, and the false dichotomy of a political and a private sphere.
#PICTURE MY LIFE
In Zimbabwe, sexual harrassment and assault are rife. A group of women filmmakers is responding with a project to give victims a voice. Yandani Mlilo reports.
From Despair to Consciousness
Gabriela Jauregui reflects on #MujeresJuntasMarabunta
Editorial: women together are legion
Towards the female gaze
What happens to a novel before and after #metoo? Nina Leger explores the impact the movement had on her novel's reception – and how, as a writer, she aims to 'invert the gaze' from male to female.