On May 7 at Judson Memorial Church we co-organised for Freedom to Write for Palestine, featuring writers who have withdrawn from PEN America’s World Voices Festival and the PEN America Literary Awards.
In a historic moment of solidarity, dozens of authors have withdrawn from PEN America events, roundly rejecting the organization’s historic failure to stand with Palestinian writers being killed and displaced en masse in Gaza.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
Music from Huda Asfour
Mahmoud Alyazji remembers his friend, Mohammed Zaher Hammo
Readings by Parul Sehgal and Kay Gabriel from Voices of the Nakba
Eugenia Leigh reads The Poets Who Are Our Enemies.
NEXT UP: FREEDOM TO WRITE FOR PALESTINE - LA EDITION | June 4th
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.