Vice-President of Writers’ Organization (PEN) Resigns Because of Panel’s Excluding Russian Writers
A very interesting article in The Atlantic (Gal Beckerman):
[B]oycotts [of Russian culture] have only increased in intensity, and in ways that demonstrate how wartime assaults on freedom can ripple far outside the conflict zone—where the sound of war is not that of bombs detonating but of piercing silence. Now the impulse to censor anyone Russian has arrived in the United States, at a venue that is designed to—of all things—champion and promote freedom of speech and expression: PEN America’s annual World Voices festival. It has also led, quite precipitously, to the writer Masha Gessen’s decision to resign as the vice president of PEN’s board of directors.
This past Saturday, as part of the festival, Gessen was set to moderate a panel showcasing writers in exile, two of them, like Gessen, Russian-born authors who had left their country in disgust. But a day before the event, ticket holders received an email saying that because of “unforeseen ci
Article from Reason.com
