PEN World Voices Heads to the West Coast

Rahul Bhattacharya

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The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature begins April 25, but you don’t have to live near Manhattan to get a taste of what the festival has to offer: stellar authors from around the globe communing with their American peers and readers.

Along with stops in the Midwest, the Northeast, and the Eastern Seaboard, the PEN World Voices Festival tour will be coming to the West Coast from May 2 to May 4. Rahul Bhattacharya, whose first novel, “The Sly Company of People Who Care” (FSG), has earned him comparisons to V.S. Naipaul, and acclaimed (and banned) author Yan Lianke, whose newest novel, “Dream of Ding Village” (Grove), recounts a blood-selling scandal in China that resulted in an AIDS epidemic, are the headliners.

On May 2, Bhattacharya and Lianke will be at Powell’s in Portland, Ore. On May 4, they will be at the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, in conversation with stellar author Sherman Alexie (a past ZYZZYVA contributor). And on May 3, they will be at the Readers Cafe in San Francisco, at an event co-hosted by ZYZZVA and the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. Stellar author Daniel Alarcon will be there, too, joining the conversation moderated by ZYZZYVA Managing Editor Oscar Villalon.

So plan ahead, and do come out.

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