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« PEN UPDATES SOON | Main | PEN REPORTS: DAY TWO »

April 27, 2007

PEN REPORTS: DAY ONE

Clearly, getting coverage posted in a timely manner is proving to be a challenge.  Expect the lag to continue through the weekend.

However, first and most important thought:  If you are in NYC and have not attended any of these events yet, do so.  Now.  These events have uniformly been fascinating, well-presented and thought provoking - in short, it's been the best festival of its kind that we've ever attended and we strongly encourage you to check into any of the remaining events over the next few days.

Herewith, thumbnail impressions of the first day's events:

Laila_panel Event:  History and the Truth of Fiction
Participants: Arthur Japin, Laila Lalami, Imma Monsó, Michael Wallner; moderated by Colum McCann
Attendance: Strong - 50+
Logline: On the obligations to "truth" and "facts" when writing fiction dealing with historical events.
Impressions:  An awfully strong start to the festival for us.  We mentioned to a friend that if this was the level of discourse to expect from the whole weekend, we were going to have fun, indeed.  McCann was a witty and thoughtful moderator and the panel stayed remarkably focused, even as they expressed occasional disagreement with one another.  Especially great to see Monsó present with a translator, emphasizing the international nature of the event.
Highlights:  Japin giving a reading-cum-performance from his novel that can only be described as Shatner-eqsue ... Laila on the clear distinction between "facts" and "truth" ... McCann suggesting that Leopold Bloom is more real to him than his own great-grandfater (who he never knew), and suggesting that writers are the "unacknowledged historians of the future."

Event:  Town Hall Readings
Participants: With Don DeLillo, Kiran Desai, Neil Gaiman, Nadine Gordimer, Alain Mabanckou, Steve Martin, Salman Rushdie, Pia Tafdrup, Tatyana Tolstaya, Saadi Youssef
Attendance: Packed - near sellout
Logline: Ten A-list authors from around the world reading 10-minute excerpts from their work dealing with themes of Home.
Impressions:  We had more room in our cramped coach seat on American Airlines than we had in the unbearably uncomfortable Town Hall.  But it was worth suffering through for a chance to hear some of these luminaries read.  Steve Martin, reading from his memoir-in-progress, was entertaining as one would expect; DeLillo was an unremarkable reader, whereas Desai gave one of the liveliest readings of the night.
Salman Highlights:  Alain Mabanckou read a lovely poem in French, which was then read in English by an interpreter ... and Danish poet Pai Tafdrup also read one of her poems in Danish, a wonderful touch as befits an international festival ... Rushdie read from The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Gordimer read excerpts from a new short story ... Rushdie opened the proceedings, imploring "You, Inconsiderate Cell Phone Man" (the who always forgets to shut if off despite requests) for compliance ... and he took note at the outset of the remarkably youthful makeup of the audience which proposed "means maybe the novel is not" dead.  (Forgive our horrible photographs but we were up in the balcony with a crummy digital camera.  Yes, that is Rushdie.)

Afterwards, we attended the party Soft Skull threw in honor of Mabanckou's new novel African Psycho.  (Mabanckou lives in Santa Monica and teaches at UCLA.)  It's a book worth checking out.

We're off to head in for another rainy day of events but will post Day Two as soon as we can, which will include brief video clips of Pico Iyer's event and George Konrad reading in Hungarian.  More presently.

Posted by TEV at 09:18 AM in PEN World Voices |

Comments

Mark,

This was a great presentation, thanks. I would have given anything to be back in New York to hear the Town Hall meetings readings so I really appreciate your notes.

I had to stay in LA for the LA Times Book Festival which seems to have left feelings fairly depressed about the state of things in books (in contrast the LA Festvial very celebrity-soaked and mostly for big publishers) so this was cheering.

All best,

Leora Skolkin-Smith

Posted by:Leora Skolkin-Smith | April 28, 2007 at 07:10 AM

I like the quote for your logline,
'On the obligations to "truth" and "facts" when writing fiction dealing with historical events.'

For truth and facts relate to normal everyday life too in either small or huge doses and it can affect even close friends such as one writer friend of mine who also happens to be talentd and who has been at the end of a warring match simply because of untruths and propapanda spread to defame his good name.

Hence 'History and the Truth of Fiction' has a more personal meaning for me which makes this event even more interesting for me to follow and comment on. For, for me, when truth is distorted it borders on hypocrisy which can only be a negative point even in Fiction for fiction works well if it is based on reality so as to allow the reader to experience 'truth' in writing.

To further my point, this writer friend has gone through enormous pressure in dealing with the way some readers and so-called friends have tried so hard to slander his good name on a website for professional musicians and writers to interact amicably and professionally.

Truth in Fiction has to prevail in our lives as well otherwise some can become overtly arrogant in their actions and propaganda.

Let's not face another war.


Posted by:Coll B. Lue | April 29, 2007 at 02:25 AM

And besides, if we cannot state hard facts and truths in Historical works and Fiction in general, we cannot be truthful to ourselves.

Through literary events such as this, I believe Literary and Historical works can still hold important factual details we are obliged to heed.

Posted by:Coll B. Lue | April 29, 2007 at 07:31 AM

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