Bernardo Atxaga at the PEN World Voices festival in New York
06-05-2009 ¦ Festivals
Bernardo Atxaga appeared at the recently held PEN World Voices festival, organized by the PEN Club in New York. The week-long festival hosted 160 authors from all over the world, including authors of stature such as Paul Auster and Antonio Tabucchi. Bernardo Atxaga brought the voice of the Basque Country to the festival.
The PEN club, an association of writers in the United States, held its international literature festival for the fifth year in a row. This year's festival, titled Evolution-Revolution, took place from April 27 through May 3, showcasing literature from all over the world.
This year's lineup had 160 authors from 41 countries, among them Asteasu-born Bernardo Atxaga. The complete festival program can be seen at the official web site.
Atxaga participated in two events. The first was a round table which took place at the Cervantes Institute on April 30 at 4pm. Atxaga, Javier Calvo, Enrique Vila-Matas and Santiago Roncagliolo spoke about current trends in Spanish language literature (Tendencies in Spanish Language Literature).
One of the highlights of the festival was the Readings from Around the Globe event, where Atxaga appeared along with writers Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe), Mariken Jongman (Netherlands), Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lanka), Daniel Sada (Mexico), Hwang Sok-yong (Korea), Antonio Tabucchi (Italy) and Colm Toibin (Ireland). The event was held on May 1 at the Unterberg Poetry Center at 7.30pm. Tickets were $20.
More information at the PEN Club's web site.