Skip to main content

Theme: Woman Life Freedom - Voices from an upprising

Editorial

It’s urgent: be our voice!

On September 16, 2022, a picture of Kurdish Jina Mahsa Amini connected to a life support machine in a hospital bed was...

By Marall Nasiri, Swedish actor and director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm November 28 2022
Fiction

Honesty is the best policy!

The author of this short story remains anonymous. She sent the text a few weeks after that the protests had started in September. Whether she is free or behind bars remains unknown to us. The short...

Author: anonymous December 11 2022
Fiction

Our Codename is Jina

On September 13, Mahsa Zhina Amini was arrested by Iran's morality police for wearing her veil the wrong way. On September 16, she died under suspicious circumstances. This was the start of the...

Text: anonymous November 13 2022
Article

A message from Sanandaj

Neda is a Kurdish woman and human rights activist who participates in and leads the protests in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj in Iran. The regime's forces have occupied the center of the city and the...

Text: Neda from Kurdistan November 04 2022

Theme: Ukraine

Editorial

“May the World Listen…”

Oksana Zabuzhko, poet, fiction writer, and essayist, is one of contemporary Ukrainian literature’s foremost voices in...

Leader: Mikael Nydahl, guest editor April 20 2022
Article

Sounds of Peace

Former president of Ukrainian PEN Andrey Kurkov is one of the most translated Ukrainian writers. Kurkov received great international attention with the book Death and the Penguin. Since the beginning...

By Andrey Kurkov February 24 2023
Article

Speech at Mårbacka

Speech at Mårbacka was performed during the Literature Festival at Mårbacka on July 30, 2022. Like many people in Ukraine after February 2022, the author of the speech, Olena Stepanenko, writes russia...

By Olena stepanenko December 03 2022
Article

Why you should not be naïve about Russian culture

Philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko gives a brief look into the history of ideas to help us reflect on what is happening now. He advocates a critical approach to Russian culture which, according to him...

By: Volodymyr Jermolenko September 16 2022
Article

Reinforced Concrete: From the Kharkiv Diary

In this travel diary, Tetyana Teren writes about the literary city of Kharkiv. The diary was written in June during a train trip she made from Kyiv to Kharkiv together with five Ukrainian PEN writers...

Text: Tetyana Teren September 06 2022
Fiction

Love in the Time of War

What happens to love when the man is at the front or alone and abandoned in his home separated from the woman he loves and the bombs are within reach? When the wife who has been forced to flee...

By Irena Karpa August 26 2022
Interview

An interview with Oksana Zabuzhko

PEN/Opp publishes an exclusive interview with author Oksana Zabuzhko, made by Stefan Ingvarsson. At the time for the interview, Oksana Zabuzhko stayed at a writer's residence in the city of Gdańsk...

Interview by Stefan Ingvarsson August 05 2022
Fiction

41 Days

Oleg Mikhailov is a Russian-Ukrainian playwright. He was born in Yekaterinburg (Russia) in 1975 and has lived in Kharkiv since 2009, where he has been living during the entirety of the war, despite...

By: Oleg Mihajlov May 13 2022
Article

Ukrainian writers – defying the Russian invasion 

As the Russian attack on Ukraine wreaks destruction and creates millions of refugees, many of Ukraine's writers have found themselves turning to activism by joining volunteer groups, the Armed Forces...

Interview: Joakim Medin April 29 2022
Poetry

Poems by Daryna Gladun

The Ukrainian poet Daryna Gladun lived in Bucha until the beginning of March. When she realized that the Russian troops were not only bombing the airport but were also aiming to take over the city...

Poems: Daryna Gladun April 22 2022
Article

Am I panicking enough?

This article, written and published on January 18 in German by the Ukrainian author and publisher Kateryna Mischenko, is a prologue to PEN/Opp's upcoming Ukraine issue, which will be launched in ten...

By Kateryna Mishchenko March 07 2022

Like what you read?

Take action for freedom of expression and donate to PEN/Opp. Our work depends upon funding and donors. Every contribution, big or small, is valuable for us.

Donate on Patreon
More ways to get involved

Search