Kicking off on May 10 through May 13 with a slew of events held concurrently in New York and Los Angeles, PEN America's 18th annual World Voices Festival will feature a ton of literary happenings sure to delight folks of all backgrounds.
This year, Ta-Nehisi Coates, the award-winning author of Between the World and Me, will deliver the prestigious keynote, the annual Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture. Expect him to address topics related to book censorship in schools, among others.
"America has long been haunted by men who considered 'freedom of speech' a right reserved for a certain class," Coates said in an official statement. "Indeed, this current effort to drive uncomfortable literature from the public square is as old as the slave codes, as old as the gag laws. And just as old are those who understand that true free speech cannot be divorced from freedom itself."
Confirmed attendees include Roxane Gay, John Irving, Sarah Polley, Imani Perry, Min Jin Lee and Ottessa Moshfegh, among plenty of others.
Find tickets on sale right here and a list of events, which will be held all over downtown New York, over here. Some of them will be free to attend!
