This Weekend: PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature

Continuing through Sunday, May 1, more than 100 writers from 40 nations convene in New York City to celebrate the power of the writer’s voice as a bold and vital element of public discourse. The PEN (Poets-Essayists-Novelists) organization challenges New Yorkers to "Dare to view the world from a fresh perspective at stages across the city, including the festival’s hubs—The Standard, New York and the High Line. The program features panel discussions, one-on-one conversations, readings, performances, and much more."

A variety of voices -- established and new-- are being featured in numerous venues around town, including Wole Soyinka, readings from David Foster Wallace's Pale King by Rick Moody, A Translation Slam,  Comics on Stage, wrtiers from Asia, conversations hosted by Salman Rushdie, as well as Laurie Anderson, Gioconda Belli, Harold Bloom, Deborah Eisenberg, Malcolm Gladwell, Hanif Kureishi, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Amélie Nothomb, Cynthia Ozick, Elif Shafak, Wallace Shawn, Edmund White, and Irvine Welsh -- there is quite a bit on tap.

I am looking forward to a staged reading of The Ice Trilogy by Vladimir Sorokin. I recently finished Mr. Sorokin's fascinating novel The Day of the Oprichnik (translation by Jamie Gambrell; published by Farrah Strauss Giroux) which is an extremely colorful, accessible, and disturbing vision of a future Russia (and world).

As a long time fan of Vladimir Voynovich's 1987 satire, "Moscow 2040," which is a novel about Glasnost written before the end of the Soviet Union, I was delighted to discover Mr. Sorokin's work, which is darker, more violent, with a satire more corrosive and a view of  the future --not just of Russia, but the world -- that is high flying and visionary. I am currently reading Mr. Sorokin's novel Ice Trilogy, which has a dramatically different theme but is an equally extreme and engaging read.  In a separate event, Mr. Sorokin also will be speaking in conversation at Cooper Union tomorrow with Keith Gessen of n+1. Details here

For more information regarding the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature visit here