Writers Arriving in Bled Today for PEN Congress
Some 300 authors from around the globe are expected to converge on the lakeside resort of Bled today for the 71st world congress of International PEN, the worldwide literary and human rights association founded in England in 1921.
The major part of the congress (14 to 21 June) is three round-table debates. This year, the themes are "The Tower of Babel - a Curse or a Blessing", "Literature as Guardian of Cultural Landscape" and "The Language of Peace - Literature as Lingua Franca".
The congress will actually not open until Wednesday, when the first of the three round-table debates will be held, while today the participants will be welcomed by Bled Mayor Joze Antonic.
The programme includes meetings of various committees, like the writers for peace committee or the one focusing on the rights of women authors. Although their sessions will be held behind closed doors, the contents of the meetings will be made public.
According to Tone Persak, the head of Slovenian PEN Centre, all resolutions and the results of votes will be made known at the final press conference on Monday, 20 June. Persak also highlighted a number of readings held across Slovenia and an evening of Slovenian poetry at Bled.
The congress will feature some big names, such as Arto Paasilina of Finland, Peter S. Beagle of the US, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Feliciano Sanchez Chan, a representative of the literature of the Maya, the South African-born playwright Ronald Harwood, Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare and the International PEN president Jirzi Grusa.
This year's congress will mark the 40th anniversary of the PEN world congress which was organised at Bled in 1965 as the first post-WWII PEN congress in any Communist country.
Receptions for representatives of individual national PEN centres attending the congress will also be hosted by President Janez Drnovsek, Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel and Mayor of Ljubljana Danica Simsic.
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