PEN America World Voices Festival
Literary Quest
Westbeth Edition

When: Friday April 20
Where: Westbeth Community Room 155 Bank Street
When: 6:30pm – 9:30pm
Tickets: $20
Order tickets here: https://worldvoices.pen.org/session/literary-quest-westbeth-edition/

Experience the artist’s life in one of New York’s leading artist housing communities. The artist-residents of this cultural institution open their homes for intimate, salon-style readings and conversations with Festival authors, followed by cocktails in their legendary gallery.

With PEN Authors:
Nachoem M. Wijnberg (Amsterdam, 1961) is a Dutch poet and novelist. His poetry has received many awards, including the 2018 PC Hooft Prize, the most important career award in the Netherlands. His work has been translated into many languages, books in English include Advance Payment (Anvil Press/Carcanet, 2013), Divan of Ghalib (White Pine Press, 2016) and Of Great Importance (Punctum, 2018).He is also a professor at the University of Amsterdam Business School.

Rupert Thomson’s latest novel is Never Anyone But You slated to publish with Other Press this June. He is the author of nine highly acclaimed novels, including Katherine Carlyle; Secrecy; The Insult, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and selected by David Bowie as one of his 100 Must-Read Books of All Time. He lives in London.

Ashley Hay’s work has been praised for its “incandescent intelligence and a rare sensibility.” An award-winning essayist and science writer, her three novels–The Body in the Clouds, The Railwayman’s Wife, and A Hundred Small Lessons–have received or been shortlisted for literary awards in Australia and beyond.

Susan Kuklin is an author and photographer of nonfiction books for young adults, including Beyond Magenta, Transgender Teens Speak Out, No Choirboy: Murder, Violence and Teenagers on Death Row, and Dance, coauthored with Bill T. Jones. Her photographs have appeared in major newspapers and magazines, documentary films, and the permanent collection at the Museum of the City of New York.

Susan will be reading from a soon-to-be-published book, Here to Stay, Undocumented Young Adults.

Trifonia Melibea Obono is a journalist and a professor at the National University of Equatorial Guinea. She is pursuing her doctorate in gender studies and human rights from the University of Salamanca, Spain.

Sharon Bala’s debut novel, The Boat People, was published by McClelland & Stewart and Doubleday US in January 2018. The manuscript won the Percy Janes First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Fresh Fish Award. A three-time recipient of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Arts and Letters award, she has stories published in Hazlitt, Grain, The Dalhousie Review, and others.

Demian Vitanza is an acclaimed Norwegian playwright and author. He taught writing in Norway’s high security prisons when he met a young Norwegian-Pakistani man imprisoned for traveling to Syria and taking part in terrorist actions. This Life or the Next is Vitanza’s third book.

Alicia Kopf is the artistic name for Catalan writer Imma Ávalos. After her first individual exhibition at the Joan Prats Gallery in Barcelona, she participated in many collective exhibitions at CCCB and MACBA, or the Tàpies Foundation, amongst others. Her first novel, Germà de gel (L´Altra Editorial, 2016), has received several awards and will be published in nearly 10 languages.

Hadi Nasiri is an Iranian multidisciplinary artist and activist whose work involves painting, sculpture, film, graphic design, performance, and political protest. Hadi is the first artist to participate in the New York City Safe Haven Residency Program, a multi-organizational artist residency program designed to house, integrate, and support artists under threat.

Basma Abdel Aziz

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Kanchana Ugbabe is an Indian-Nigerian Writer and scholar teaching creative writing at Fordham University. She is the New York City Safe Haven Prototype’s first Writer at Risk in Residence of the Fordham University’s English Department living in Westbeth. Kanchana work surrounds cross-cultural negotiations and ethno-religious conflict in the city of Jos, Nigeria. She spent a year as Scholar at Risk at Harvard University, and many years as professor of English at the University of Jos.

Ayşe Kulin is one of Turkey’s most beloved authors, with more than ten million copies of her books sold. In addition to penning internationally bestselling novels, she has worked as a producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter for numerous television shows and films. Her novel Last Train to Istanbul won the European Council Jewish Community Best Novel Award and has been translated into twenty-three languages.

Leni Zumas is the author of the story collection Farewell Navigator and the novel The Listeners, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She is an associate professor in the MFA in Creative Writing program at Portland State University.

Co-presented with the Westbeth Artists Residents Council

Tickets: $20
Order tickets here: https://worldvoices.pen.org/session/literary-quest-westbeth-edition/