| PEN World Voices Festival Begins April 24 |
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 PEN World Voices FestivalVarious locations throughout NYC As New York's original international writers' festival, PEN World Voices is an answer to American cultural insularity and an attempt to enrich and sustain a global dialogue. Each spring the Festival brings writers from all over the world to New York City to introduce American audiences to the finest in international literature. Proudly presented by PEN American Center and taking place in venues throughout the city, the third PEN World Voices brings together a dazzling line-up of international writers with some of the best-known authors in the U.S. to discuss topics as varied as today’s migrations and changing notions of nation and identity, the planetary threat of environmental degradation, and how literature can help us to better understand our relationship to our own and each other’s homes. Do not miss this unique opportunity to celebrate the rich mix of languages and cultures found in New York City, and the metropolis’s vital link to other nations and people from around the globe. Authors Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer, Neil Gaiman, David Grossman, Guillermo Arriaga, Laila Lalami, Dave Eggers, Saadi Youssef, Steve Martin, Sam Shepard, Patti Smith and many others will be in town for six days of conversations, debates and readings that explore the theme of "Home and Away." Specially featured at the festival are several German-language authors -- Dorothea Dieckmann, Zafer Senocak, and Ilija Trojanow, Carolin Emcke and Michael Wallner.
 Colson Whitehead is a New York City native who has won many awards including the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Award and a PEN/Hemingway Award for his first novel, "The Intuitionist." His most recent novel is "Apex Hides the Hurt." The Great Hall at Cooper Union New York University 7 East 7th Street April 24, 7-8:30 p.m. Tickets: $15, purchase tickets here Description: Perhaps the most urgent crisis that we face on the planet is that of the planet itself. The effects of the destruction of the Earth's natural systems reach across all boundaries of nationality, economics, religion, ethnicity and language to touch each of us. In the opening event authros Billy Collins, Jonathan Franzen, Moses Isegawa, Pico Iyer, Laura Restrepo, Marilynne Robinson, Roxana Robinson, Salman Rushdie, Gary Shteyngart and Colson Whitehead read from their work and the works of others on the subject of the natural world.
 Steve Martin lives in New York City and Los Angeles. Besides his success in film projects such as "The Father of the Bride," "Parenthood," and "L.A. Story," his first and second novellas "Shopgirl" and "The Pleasure of My Company" were ranked on best-seller lists across the country. His work frequently appears in "The New Yorker," and "The New York Times." The Town Hall 123 West 43rd Street April 25, 8-9:30 p.m. Tickets: $15, purchase tickets here Description: Writers explore what binds us to home and what holds us apart from it, and why home, or the idea of it, is or isn’t worth dying and killing for. How do we find home, and, when we lose it, how do we make a new one? Why do we leave home and why do we long to return? We’ll visit the domestic, the exiled, the global, and the imagined in search of a place we can call our own. Featuring Don DeLillo, Kiran Desai, Neil Gaiman, Nadine Gordimer, Alain Mabackou, Steve Martin, Salman Rushie, Pia Tafdrup, Tatyana Tolstaya, Saadi Youssef. An Evening with The Moth Conversation: Kiran Desai and Vikram Chandra, with Rachel Donadio  Kiran Desai was born in Delhi, India and spent a year in England before her family moved to the United States. She received an MFA from Columbia University. She is the youngest woman ever to win the Booker Prize-an award for which her mother, Anita Desai, has been short-listed three times. Description: Join authors Kiran Desai and Vikram Chandra for a discussion about their writing and their recent books with Rachel Donadio of The New York Times Book Review. In her Man Booker Prize–winning novel "The Inheritance of Loss," Kiran Desai writes about the consequences of colonialism and sheds light on conflicts of religion, race, and nationalism. Vikram Chandra won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book for his novel "Red Earth and Pouring Rain." His latest work, "Sacred Games," is a vivid evocation of crime and punishment on the streets of Mumbai, with a cast of characters based on Chandra's interviews with gangsters and police.
Description: Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome! Some very special guests come together for a big-bang celebration of PEN’s third World Voices Festival of International Literature. Poet, singer/songwriter, and New York icon Patti Smith will be joined on stage by playwright, author, and actor Sam Shepard. There will also be a special show by spoken-word poet and musician Saul Williams, a performance by Nona Appleby (aka Victoria Roberts, cartoonist for "The New Yorker"), readings by international authors, and one or two other surprise guests. Pull up a chair, grab a martini from the bar, sit back, and enjoy the show.
 David Grossman was born in Jerusalem and lives there with his wife and children. He's received award and many pieces of journalism for the European and American press. His works of fiction include "The Smile of the Lambs," "See Under: Love, Be My Knife, and "Lovers and Strangers." Description: David Grossman is a novelist, journalist, and children’s book writer whose work examines the human soul, love, and the Holocaust, as well as the tragedies and opportunities of contemporary Israeli-Palestinian relations. In 1988, Grossman received the Har Zion Prize in recognition of his efforts to enhance peace and understanding between Arabs and Jews. Last year, he joined A.B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz in a plea to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to reach a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. A few days later, Grossman’s son Uri was killed when his tank was hit by a Hezbollah missile. After the lecture, Grossman will be joined on stage by Nobel Prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer for a discussion about his life and work.
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