PEN International & China

I’m over at the Huffington Post with a recap on the PEN report on the ways in which the Chinese government has been suppressing the voices of that country’s writers. You can read it here. Below, an excerpt:

PEN deserves to be recognized for the work the member centers have done to produce this report, for its relentlessness in going to bat for its most far-flung comrades, and for garnering the written support of some of the most celebrated and determinedly political writers, among them Gioconda Belli, Wole Soyinka, and Edwidge Danticat. There is a sense of optimism surrounding the work that PEN does, including this latest initiative on behalf of Chinese writers, that harkens to the greater good that, one hopes, still remains in sight of even the most repressive of governments. The Chinese, as Saul points out, have experienced that good in the past and surely would wish to reclaim it now.