Skip to main content

Interviews

Interview

Not my Egypt

Ahmed Naji is trying to understand the zeitgeist. In the 36 years of his life he has witnessed dictatorship, revolution, counter-revolution, military coup, jail and exile. Ahmed Naji’s story is unique...

Interview by Edgar Mannheimer February 19 2022
Interview

Interview with the Iraqi author Hassan Blasim

Hassan Blasim is a writer, poet, and film director who has been called "perhaps the best living Arab writer.” His international breakthrough was with his acclaimed collection of short stories Iraqi...

By: Kholod Saghir June 10 2021
Interview

Interview with the Tunisian poet Inas Abassi

Ten years have passed since the start of what is popularly called “The Arab Spring,” a series of revolutions that began in Tunisia when the vegetable dealer Mohammed Bouazizi self-immolated in protest...

Text: Sarra Anaya April 21 2021
Interview

An Interview with Betlehem Isaak on Hate Speech

Betlehem Isaak is a writer and activist. Her debut My Life without You, came out in March 2020 and is the story of her childhood in Sweden and Eritrea, about living in the shadow of her father, the...

Interview: Casia Blomberg October 27 2020
Interview

Transforming Hong Kong

Bao Pu runs the publishing house New Century Press in Hong Kong that has published several politically sensitive books. In Jojje Olsson’s interview Bao Pu describes a Hong Kong that once had a...

Text: Jojje Olsson June 13 2019
Interview

“We’re Living under a Systematic Censorship”

President Nicolás Maduro was recently sworn in for a new six-year term of office. No democratic country recognises him as the legitimate leader of the country, but that doesn’t stop the regime. The...

Text: Henrik Brandão Jönsson January 22 2019
Interview

One year with the PEN International Women’s Manifesto

The PEN International Women’s Manifesto is now a year old. It has during this year been circulated round the world. The important message has been welcomed by literature and publishing circles and has...

Text: Tanja Tuma November 29 2018
Interview

"Almost nobody seems to care"

In an interview, philosopher G. M. Tamás tells PEN/Opp why freedom of speech and democracy are in decline in his home country.

Text: Daniel Gustafsson March 13 2018
Interview

My.Kali: A Novel To Remember

Antonia Kreissl meets the writer Saleem Haddad in a conversion on identity, gender, sexuality and on how the novel can be a part of forming a queer, cosmopolitan identity.

Text: Antonia Kreissl December 18 2017
Interview

The Same Silence as Before

In Turkey on September 9 Ahmed Altan, writer, journalist and former chief editor, was detained along with his brother. In an interview by Alev Yaman made just before Altan’s detention Altan claims...

Text: Alev Yaman September 17 2016
Interview

Peace songs for Sudan

Month after month, the Sudanese musician Abazar Hamid submitted his peace and love songs to the government’s music monitoring committee which mostly censored and rejected them. Songs dealing with...

Text: Nicky Armstrong, Christopher Finnigan March 10 2016

Menu

Search