News

I met Cristina Henriquez at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference last year, and we’ve been in touch since. Having read a couple of her stories, I was eagerly awaiting the release of her first collection, Come Together, Fall Apart. (Henriquez is now on the road, promoting the book; you should try and make it to one of her readings. ) This week, I’d like to give away a copy of this lovely collection, to the first reader who correctly answers this question: What is the title of the novella included in this debut? Please include your mailing address. Previous winners excluded.

Update: The winner is Amanda R. from Cookeville, Tennessee.

Well, it turned out that quite a few people are proud to call themselves ‘liberals,’ as you can see from yesterday’s reading with Thom Hartmann at Powell’s.

You can purchase Proud To Be Liberal here.

The appeals court in Rabat upheld a judgment against independent newsmagazine Le Journal Hebdo in the libel lawsuit brought against it by the Belgian think tank ESISC:

[The think tank’s] study said the United Nations should drop efforts to hold an independence referendum for Western Sahara, a mineral-rich former Spanish territory seized by Morocco in 1974. The rebel Polisario Front waged a long desert war seeking to end the annexation and gain independence.

The magazine said in December that the findings were so similar to official Morocco’s views that it raised questions about whether the study was “guided by” and possibly paid for by the Moroccan government.

The punitive damages against the weekly’s publisher, Aboubakr Jamai, and writer Fahd Iraqi were the biggest ever given journalists in Morocco, leading rights groups to question whether the courts were trying to curb media from taking independent stances on important matters.

“With this disproportionate sentence … the judges are clearly trying to silence the journal,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

The group said the magazine wasn’t allowed to mount a proper defense. During the trial, the judge barred Le Journal Hebdomadaire from introducing an expert witness, prompting the magazine to withdraw from the proceedings in protest.

Read it all here And weep.

Novelist Rashim Esenov from Turkmenistan became the first writer to accept PEN’s Freedom To Write Award in person, at a gala event. (Because of the nature of the award, the recipients are usually in prison, or not able to travel to New York.) Apparently, Esenov’s ‘offence’ was:

According to PEN, he was arrested two years ago when he returned to Turkmenistan from a trip to Moscow with 800 copies of his banned trilogy, “Ventsenosny Skitalets” (“The Crowned Wanderer”), about a 16th-century Turkmen poet and general, Bayram Khan, who is said to have saved the Mogul empire from breaking apart.

Mr. Esenov was accused of smuggling the books and with inciting national and religious hatred. Although he was released from prison a few weeks after his arrest, he was forbidden to leave Turkmenistan, even to seek medical treatment in Moscow. Many of his books were burned.

After leaving New York, Esenov is due to go to Moscow for medical treatment, and then he “expects to return to his homeland after that. It is unclear what his status will be then.”

Michael Lowenthal writes in about an interesting Pen event, Writing and Expression in Wartime. Writers Rebecca Faery, James Caroll, Nathaniel Fick, and Uzodinma Iweala discuss questions posed for writers in wartime.

This all takes place tonight, Thursday, April 20th at 7:00 pm at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.