The Red Terror and Maximilian Voloshin
Robert Chandler writes about one of the hidden gems in The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry
Central Asia
Central Asia – PEN Transmissions
Publishers’ translation highlights 2015
Halt your book purchases: PEN Atlas has everything you need
Why I write what I write?
Farnoosh Moshiri details the tragic betrayal of the revolution in Iran
Memory and Responsibility
Having won the 2014 Jan Michalski Prize for Road to Donbass, Serhiy Zhadan writes for PEN Atlas
But why do you write your books in English and Turkish?
Elif Shafak investigates what makes the bilingual author choose to write in one language and not another
Life and Fate Redux
Robert Chandler writes from the first Russian conference on Vasily Grossman, author of the monumental Life and Fate,
The erotic and revolutionary poetry of Afghanistan
Amid recent election controversies, Bashir Sakhwaraz writes about Afghan women's poetry
Kiev’s Militant Spring
Alexei Nikitin writes for PEN Atlas about the tense atmosphere in Kiev, where the café-goers listening to jazz and the remaining protesters on the Maidan barricades await further news from the east of the country
The apricot border with Russia, or separatism on Skype
With the growing troubles in Ukraine, poet and dramatist Liubov Iakymchuk writes for PEN Atlas
Russian déjà vu at Sochi 2014 – who lost the games?
Mikhail Shishkin writes our second PEN Atlas dispatch on the Sochi Winter Olympics, a story of billion-dollar corruption, Soviet-style propaganda, and a regime bent on hiding opposition and urban decay behind sports kitsch and a new coat of paint.
What is the real cost of the Sochi Winter Olympics?
Hamid Ismailov investigates the underside of the Sochi Olympics for PEN Atlas: while the Western media focuses on LGBT rights, there is also the shocking unheard story of migrant labourers held in captivity, mercury and uranium deposits from construction work, jingoism, corruption and worse
Deadlock in Ukraine
Andrey Kurkov, author of the bestselling novel Death and the Penguin, writes about the ongoing turmoil in his country, the protestors braving bullets and abductions, the influence of Putin on the government, and the fate of Ukraine itself.
Publishers’ highlights in 2014: part 1
Chase away those stormy blues with a new book for the new year.
The duty to write
Journalist-turned-freedom-fighter Mikail Eldin writes for PEN Atlas on his experience of the Chechen wars, and how writing a memoir is a way to honour fallen friends, who risked their lives to ensure he might live to tell their story
Worlds apart: Russia online and offline
In this week's PEN Atlas piece, Arkady Babchenko writes on freedom of speech, media and the internet in Russia
The Debut Generation
Alisa Ganieva writes about the republic of Dagestan, winning the Debut Prize, and the moment when the identity of the mysterious author Gulla Khirachev was revealed...