On May 7 at Judson Memorial Church we co-organised for Freedom to Write for Palestine, featuring writers who have withdrawn from PEN America’s World Voices Festival and the PEN America Literary Awards.

In a historic moment of solidarity, dozens of authors have withdrawn from PEN America events, roundly rejecting the organization’s historic failure to stand with Palestinian writers being killed and displaced en masse in Gaza. As a result, both the 2024 World Voices Festival and the Literary Awards were cancelled two weeks before they were scheduled to begin.

THE PROGRAM

Opening remarks by Nancy Kricorian

Introduction by Derecka Purnell

Michelle Alexander reads Haya Abu Nasser

Mohamed Arafat tells his family’s story

Evie Shockley reads Fady Joudah

Nicholas Glastonbury on the Case of Palestine

Esther Allen on the PEN Translation Committee

The Worker Writers School: Mark Nowak, Seth Goldman and Lorraine Garret

Music from Huda Asfour

Sabrina Imbler reads Haidar al-Ghazali

Kira Josefsson, Alejandro Varela  & Marie Myung-Ok Lee read Dima Maher Ashour

Hari Kunzru on Hebron

Music from Huda Asfour

Mahmoud Alyazji remembers his friend, Mohammed Zaher Hammo

Reading by Parul Sehgal and Kay Gabriel from Voices of the Nakba

Eugenia Leigh reads The Poets Who Are Our Enemies

You can read more in LitHub’s extensive coverage here.

The event was a fundraiser for We Are Not Numbers, a youth-led Palestinian nonprofit project in Gaza that provides the world with direct access to Palestinian narratives.

The venue is wheelchair accessible and that entrance is at 243 Thompson Street.

Location: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, NYC

Masks encouraged

Freedom to Write for Palestine was organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature, Writers Against the War on Gaza, and Amplify Palestine.