Great Writers on Free Speech and the Environment

The PEN American Center just wound up World Voices 2007, a conference featuring a slew of major authors, including Salman Rushdie, Don DeLillo, Neil Gaiman, and many more. One of the panels this year featured some literary heavy hitters reading works to raise awareness for environmental issues: Billy Collins, Jonathan Franzen, Moses Isegawa, Pico Iyer, Geert Mak, Marilynne Robinson, Roxana Robinson, Salman Rushdie, Gary Shteyngart, Janne Teller and Colson Whitehead all participated (mp3).

The PEN organization works for literary freedom worldwide, and the conference keynote (mp3) features Israeli author David Grossman and Nobel Prize-winner Nadine Gordimer discussing the "Freedom to Write." Considering the news in Turkey these days, you may also want to give last year’s lecture with Orhan Pamuk and Margaret Atwood a listen (mp3).

The Center also has an iTunes podcast series and an audio archive, but since the conference just ended it will probably take some time for them to process the latest audio. iTunes Feed Site

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