Visit PEN International's website

This is a site-wide search. If you’re looking for specific collection pieces, please use Search the Collection.

Menu

PEN Oral History Collection

The PEN Oral History Collection records precious testimonies of people associated with the history of PEN.

The collection of interviews was conducted in 2018 by Ginevra Avalle with new and old PEN members who kindly agreed to share their memories as well as their biography and personal perspective on PEN. Their recollections and views have greatly enriched the multifaceted history of PEN.

1 “You cannot have a free world without free intellectual exchange”
Read the full story
2 “We insist on our idea of people’s rights to think in their own language, to express themselves, to have an identity”
Read the full story
3 “When people understand that they are responsible, they can make a difference”
Read the full story
4 “They tried to kill a lawyer, but they couldn’t stop the birth of a novelist”
Read the full story
5 “We would like to transmit how rich our literature is”
Read the full story
6 Care and Cherish Your Gift
Read the full story
7 “I said to God I needed 10 years where I would work day and night, and then I would be able to die”
Read the full story
8 “Imagination has an enormous power if you have nothing else but that”
Read the full story
9 “We are making an impact on local communities”
Read the full story
10 “My whole family is being sent to concentration camps because I left in exile”
Read the full story
11 “As a PEN Centre, we are stronger now than we ever were”
Read the full story
12 ‘I have always known how lucky I’ve been compared to other people’
Read the full story
13 “Writers in prison are obviously symptoms of disease, which is the failure of democracy and tolerance”
Read the full story
14 ‘We give all we can to let the world know that fellow writers are in peril only because they are writing a story’
Read the full story
15 “Tibetan people trust the truth. We want peaceful talking, not guns”
Read the full story
16 “The challenge is to transform this club idea into a 21st century NGO, while remaining a literary club”
Read the full story
17 “We are moving into a more troubled world and PEN needs to be stronger”
Read the full story
18 Marjorie-Ann Watts’ memories of PEN
Read the full story
19 “Our will and words are free, nobody can get to it”
Read the full story
20 “We need to break the silence; it is the only way we have to fight for justice”
Read the full story
21 “During the Spanish Civil War, English PEN helped Catalan writers by sending us paper, so we could keep publishing books and journals”
Read the full story