PEN Sydney - News

Hours after the Chinese Communist Party proposed a constitutional change last month to lift presidential term limits, any words or phrases that remotely suggested President Xi Jingping was seeking a life term were blocked from social media. Censors targeted everything from Emperor Xi, The Emperor’s Dream, and Dream of Returning to the Great Qing, to Winnie the Pooh, a reference to Xi’s apparent resemblance to the cartoon character, the China Digital Times reported.

Award-winning novelist Melissa Lucashenko will deliver the next PEN Free Voices address on the Day of the Imprisoned Writer on November 15.

Behrouz Boochani, 35, is a Kurdish journalist, poet and film producer. On his second attempt to make a boat crossing from Indonesia to Australia he was intercepted, detained on Christmas Island and after one month was transferred to the Manus Island detention centre in August 2013 where he remains. This is his latest report from detention. 

Mark Isaacs, author of The Undesirables: Inside Nauru and Nauru Burning, was commissioned to visit Manus Island last November by the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin as part of an anthology for the ‘State of Refugees’ project. 

This article is adapted from an essay he wrote for Foreign Policy.

In her Free Voices address on the 2017 Day of The Imprisoned Writer, award-winning cartoonist Cathy Wilcox looked at the ways in which cartoonists suffer and are punished, imprisoned and even killed for speaking out and drawing truths that the powerful – or fanatical - would rather not be seen. 

Cartoonist Cathy Wilcox considers whether she might be addicted to the news. Initially she thinks not. But after a minute or two reflection...

Over 250 writers, publishers and PEN members have joined a PEN International open letter to the European Commission calling for justice for Daphne ...

It has been eight years since producer Charlotte Mars and director Maya Newell began making Gayby Baby, an award-winning feature documentary starring four young people whose parents are gay. Hindsight got Maya Newell thinking. Certainly, the film caused a stir and got people talking, but what change did it make? 

Australian Journalist Peter Greste has been announced as PEN Sydney's special guest speaker at this year's Sydney Writer's Festival.  Since 9/11, t...

Right now, journalism is under threat.  While individuals have access to more content than ever before, rapid technological change has facilitated ...

The statement was made: “Artists shouldn’t be restricted by cultural boundaries when creating work”. There was laughter, jeers and cheers in this...

New York, July 18, 2017. Russian authorities should investigate threatening messages that business reporter Rinat Sagdiyev said he has received, an...