As the British government becomes increasingly eager to strengthen trade links with China, it is worth sparing a thought for those writers and journalists who are imprisoned for their writing or otherwise harassed, in violation of their right to free expression. The number of detained writers in China is among the highest in the world. […]
On 29 December 2016, Aslı Erdoğan (LR, September 2016), a prominent Turkish novelist, columnist and human rights activist, was released from pre-trial detention in Istanbul. Erdoğan had been imprisoned since August, together with twenty other journalists and employees of Ozgür Gündem, a pro-Kurdish opposition daily newspaper that was shut down following the declaration of a […]
Australia’s harsh treatment of asylum seekers has been widely condemned by international human rights groups and many of its citizens are vocal about the brutality of the system. Those seeking asylum in Australia are often traumatised people who have been tortured or have witnessed atrocities in their own countries and fear for their safety. They […]
On 15 November, to mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, PEN is highlighting the case of publisher Gui Minhai, who disappeared from his holiday home in Thailand in October 2015. Gui is a Chinese-born Swedish citizen and a former board member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, composed of leading dissident writers living in […]
In August, MacLehose Press published The Sorrows of Mexico, a timely collection of writings from seven of the country’s leading journalists, including Lydia Cacho, Anabel Hernández, Diego Enrique Osorno and Juan Villoro. Their essays and reportage underline the dangers faced by outspoken writers, journalists and students in Mexico and the crimes against free expression that […]
It was only in June that I wrote in these pages about Turkey’s repression of outspoken journalists and academics in response to the five-year prison sentences handed down to Can Dündar and Erdem Gül for publishing an article alleging that Turkey had tried to ship arms to Islamists in Syria. Since the failed military coup […]
It is hard to believe that members of a book club can be arrested and accused of ‘criminal conspiracy’. But this is exactly what happened last year to seventeen Angolan activists, known as the Luanda Book Club. On 20 June 2015, the activists gathered at a bookshop in Luanda to read and discuss journalist and […]
British human rights activist and blogger Andy Hall is currently on trial in Thailand. He is accused of criminal defamation and ‘computer crimes’ after contributing to a report about alleged abuses of migrant workers perpetrated by the Natural Fruit Company Limited, a Thai-owned fruit processing company that supplies European markets. Natural Fruit brought a complaint […]
Turkey’s hardline treatment of outspoken journalists and academics has intensified in recent months, with disturbing consequences for free expression. On 6 May 2016, Istanbul’s 14th Court for Serious Crimes sentenced prominent writer, journalist and documentary film-maker Can Dündar (LR, October 2015) to seven years in prison, reduced to five years and ten months, on charges […]
The horrific murder in Cairo of Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge PhD student from Italy, met with worldwide condemnation. Many believe his murder was effectively an extrajudicial killing by the state’s security police because of his research on trade unions and political activism in Egypt. However, outside human rights circles, there has been less interest […]
Last month, a member of Egypt Solidarity Initiative, a website that promotes the defence of democratic rights, contacted Literary Review asking for help in highlighting the case of a prominent Egyptian novelist and journalist. On 20 February 2016, Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison for ‘violating public modesty’. The charges relate to […]
To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, PEN is focusing on the cases of two Iranians detained in violation of their right to free expression. Human rights activist and journalist Narges Mohammadi (LR, June 2012) was arrested on 5 May last year and has been charged with ‘spreading propaganda against the system’ and ‘gathering […]
Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record is once more in the international spotlight after the execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. According to Amnesty International’s latest global death penalty report, Saudi Arabia is among the top three executioners worldwide, surpassed only by China and Iran. Another prominent example of Saudi Arabia’s lack of […]
On 15 November, to mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, PEN highlights the cases of various writers and political dissidents who have been persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of expression. This year the list included Thai student activists Patiwat Saraiyaem and Pornthip Munkong, who in February 2015 were each sentenced to two […]
On 1 September 2015, Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova was given a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence for ‘economic crimes, including illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion’. PEN believes the charges against Ismayilova are politically motivated and a result of her work exposing high-level government corruption. Ismayilova is a presenter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and is well […]
Irshad Manji, a renowned Canadian Muslim writer, is the latest victim to fall foul of the Malaysian government’s practice of banning books under a draconian Printing Presses and Publications Act that allows the Home Affairs Ministry ‘absolute discretion’ to ban books, from possession to reproduction and distribution. Book banning in Malaysia is nothing new. Works […]
In recent weeks, Turkey has witnessed another major crackdown on free expression. On 27 August, British journalist Jake Hanrahan and cameraman Philip Pendlebury were arrested while reporting from southeastern Turkey along with two other colleagues. They were working for the international news organisation VICE News. One colleague was later released but Hanrahan, Pendlebury and their […]
Mexico is once again under the media spotlight following the murder of Miguel Angel Jiménez Blanco, a community activist who helped families search for their missing relatives. On 8 August, his body was found, in the taxi he owned, on the outskirts of Acapulco in the southwestern state of Guerrero. He had been shot in […]
Pablo Katchadjian, a respected Argentine novelist, poet and academic, faces up to six years in prison after being accused of ‘intellectual property fraud’. In 2009, he published a short experimental book entitled El Aleph engordado (‘The Fattened Aleph’). Katchadjian took Borges’s well-known short story ‘El Aleph’ and ‘fattened’ it by adding some 5,600 words to […]
Last month, on 2 June, PEN marked the five thousand days that the Swedish-Eritrean writer and journalist Dawit Isaak (LR, April 2009) has been held without charge or trial. On 18 September 2001, after the Eritrean authorities closed all eight of the country’s private newspapers, Isaak and at least nine other independent journalists were rounded […]
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A review of my biography of Wittgenstein, and of his newly published last love letters, in the Literary Review: via @Lit_Review
Jane O'Grady - It’s a Wonderful Life
Jane O'Grady: It’s a Wonderful Life - Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy in the Age of Airplanes by Anthony Gottlieb;...
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It was my pleasure to review Stephanie Wambugu’s enjoyably Ferrante-esque debut Lonely Crowds for @Lit_Review’s April issue, out now
Joseph Williams - Friends Disunited
Joseph Williams: Friends Disunited - Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu
literaryreview.co.uk