2017 Fellows

Grace Larkin
English PEN
London, England

The writer, literary critic, Nobel laureate, and human rights activist, Liu Xiaobo, has died at the age of 61. Liu contracted cancer and was diagnosed while serving an 11-year prison sentence. He died on July 13, 2017, while still in Chinese custody.

China refused to allow him to travel overseas for adequate medical care. They instead moved him to a hospital in northeastern China, where he was reportedly treated in an isolated ward under armed guard, and held him incommunicado during his last days. Despite allowing two Western doctors in to assess Liu Xiaobo’s condition, the Chinese government insisted he was too weak to leave even after the doctors determined he was fit enough to travel for treatment. Berit Reiss-Andersenthe, the chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said that the Chinese government “bears a heavy responsibility for his premature death.”

The outpouring of grief for Liu Xiaobo, support for his wife Liu Xia, as well as widespread criticism of the Chinese government has been largely censored.

Liu was intelligent and fearless. He dedicated his life to making China the country he hoped it could be: a place where human rights are respected. He is gone too soon.

Liu played a central role in the Tiananmen Square protests and then saved many lives by negotiating a safe retreat for students as the soldiers advanced on the square. He was jailed for almost two years for his role, but the experience made him become a lifelong activist and champion of democracy.

He later wrote about the protests: “That bloody dawn in 1989 […] showed me how shallow and self-centered I still was, taught me to recognize the warmth and the inner strength of love, and gave me new appreciation of what is most important in life. I knew from that time on I would forever be living with the guilt of a survivor and in awe of the souls of the dead” (from “Using Truth to Undermine a System of Lies,” 2003, translation by Eva S. Chou, in “No Enemies, No Hatred”).

Liu Xiaobo was an intellectual and activist. Although he was arrested a few more times, amounting to having spent almost a quarter of his life behind bars, he continued to fight bravely for human rights in China. He wrote several essays and gave interviews about China’s authoritarian regime.

In 2008, he was arrested for “inciting subversion of state power” for co-authoring a pro-democracy manifesto called “Charter 08,” which called for protection of human rights in China and an end to one-party rule.

In 2010, Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his career of non-violent human rights work in China. He was represented at the award ceremony by an empty chair. Directly after, his wife, poet and artist Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest where she remains today, despite never having been charged with or convicted of a crime. She has been under constant surveillance for the last few years, living in almost total isolation.

Liu Xiaobo prepared a statement for his 2009 trial, and it was read out at the Nobel ceremony. He writes about refusing hatred, his hopes for the future of China, and his unending love for his wife.

“Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you.”

Here are more of the beautiful words of Liu Xiaobo. Please read them: “I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement.”

Grace Larkin
English PEN
London, England

A few weeks ago, I had the incredible opportunity to sit in on a meeting with Muharrem Erbey, a prominent human rights lawyer in Turkey as well as a published writer, editor, and columnist. He was in London for a few days and had stopped to visit English PEN because we’ve worked on his case before and he knows some of my co-workers. 

Muharrem previously spent three and a half years in pre-trial detention and has now been charged and sentenced to over six years in prison. He is accused of involvement with the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the alleged political front of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). However, based on the lack of evidence linking him to terrorism or the plotting of any kind of violence, PEN and other freedom of expression activists believe he has only been targeted because of his peaceful human rights work. 

I decided to post this blog now because the persecution of writers, academics, and activists in Turkey becomes more alarming every day. Idil Eser, the director of Amnesty International’s Turkey office, was detained last Wednesday along with many other activists. Her detention follows that of Taner Kilic, the chairman of Amnesty in Turkey. 

Turkey is the now biggest jailer of journalists, and over 100 independent newspapers and broadcasters there have been shut down. The crackdown on dissent in Turkey has seen about 50,000 people arrested and more than 140,000 suspended or dismissed from their jobs. 

Muharrem told us that any enlightened person in Turkey (academic, writer, politician, activist, etc.) is charged as a terrorist if he or she says anything against the current government or encourages free speech and expression.

“People can’t breathe,” he said.

Muharrem really only wants to read and write. Ideally, he said, he might not write about politics but feels he must because of what is happening in his country. He reminded us that “geography is destiny” and joked that maybe if he was born somewhere else, he’d be writing something like Virginia Woolf did.

He said he doesn’t have the luxury to be scared about going back to Turkey because he has a responsibility for his children and country. He also made it clear that he will not stop his work. Many other journalists and intellectuals in Turkey have chosen to stop challenging the government to protect themselves, but he will not because he believes it is his right to speak freely. He emphasized that it is a human responsibility to speak up about wrongdoings against others.

“They are more than names,” he said. “They are our friends. They are more than numbers. They are people.”

Despite the future Muharrem faces, he seems to remain hopeful. Regarding going back to prison, he said that man’s solitude is the first step to freedom. He is also hugely grateful for PEN’s ongoing support and solidarity. When asked about what is most helpful from an organization like PEN when you’re in prison, he expressed that letters and postcards really do help.

He acknowledged that the work PEN does on international awareness and legal campaigns is important, but he could not overstate the value of personal communication: it is important for prisoners to know that their names are still being heard. Letters and postcards help to “show solidarity to fight individual despair and hopelessness.” Hopelessness, Muharrem said, is the hardest part about being in prison. He said true happiness in life comes from compassion and care, so again, letters help.

Muharrem said that although the situation is bleak, one must believe that change can occur, and this is crucial for any writer or activist. He was insistent that change has happened and continues to happen all over the world, if not in Turkey at the moment.

“We’re sitting here, having coffee and talking like this,” he said, “because of the people that thought like us in the past.”

It was a very humbling experience. Muharrem’s life is full of meaning, and I am grateful to have met him. I also realize how incredibly privileged I am to be doing this work, considering that so many others would not be able to type words like this without fear.

As with the Nabeel Rajab post, I’ll end this with Muharrem’s own words: letter from prison, November 15, 2012.

Grace Larkin
English PEN
London, England

Some of the most fascinating work I’ve done at PEN has been with the translation program. I’ve been working on the PEN Translates grant with Theodora Danek, who runs the Writers in Translation program at English PEN. As part of this program, PEN gives grants to help publishers meet the costs of translating new works into English.

At the beginning of my internship, I had a wonderful conversation with her about how she sees translation as an art form in itself. Since then, I’ve been interested in the function of translated literature in human rights work. I’ve also attended a few translation events that English PEN has hosted. One had several translators reading from works from East and Southeast Asia, and one was a panel discussion between a Turkish poet and two translators about writing in the language of one’s home.

I started to think a lot about translation after studying education in our fellowship class with Professor Ruben Carranza. When we studied the right to education, we discussed it as a social good—a way to give a person dignity by allowing them to learn about the world around them. I had heard similar ideas in conversations about literary diversity and translation.

Literature, the internet, translated works—they all allow people to engage with important ideas. Writing can convey diverse experiences and educate people about lives that are (geographically and culturally) far from their own. Censorship often prevents this kind of education.  In this way, I think translation can be thought of as social good worth protecting through a human rights framework. Maybe this comes from my inherent belief that literature possesses the ability to foster hope, imagination, growth and empathy.

I’ve also come to believe that translation can be used as a tool of activism and dissent. There are several examples of how PEN uses translation as an act of resistance. One is the recently published book, The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea, by a North Korean dissident writer under the pseudonym, Bandi. In 1989, he began secretly writing a series of stories about life under Kim Il-sung’s totalitarian regime. A relative helped smuggle the then 750-page manuscript out of North Korea, and with help from the PEN Translates grant, the book was published in English in 2017. The collection and translation of these stories is meaningful work.

PEN Translates grants have been awarded to some of the largest publishers in the industry as well as very small independent presses that focus on literature from specific regions. Theodora pointed out that there is a real lack of funding for translation work, even with big publishers like Penguin Random House. Only about 3% of all books published in the United States are works in translation. That figure includes all books, so in terms of literary fiction and poetry, it’s closer to 0.7%. Most publishers don’t put much money into translation unless it is for international bestsellers like Murakami, Knausgaard, or Ferrante.

This is not only a barrier for writers around the world who wish to reach a larger audience, but it’s also a massive setback for English speakers who are missing out on some of the most interesting and important voices in contemporary literature.

How are we to connect the distance between ourselves and “the other” without translated literature? How are we to understand the reality of life inside North Korea without stories smuggled out and translated for the rest of the world? How are we to encourage empathy for marginalized groups of people, like immigrants, without reading accounts of life in their own words?

At PEN, translation is celebrated as a collaborative act that can connect and educate writers and readers around the world. From working with so many impressive writers and translators, I’ve been increasingly interested in translation as a tool for human rights work.

Read translated literature!