Authors from 30 countries held an “emergency” meeting at the UN

May 27, 2022 10:55 PM

"A poem will not stop a bullet, a novel cannot defuse a bomb,” Salman Rushdie said. But writers can still “sing the truth, and name the lies.”
posted by folklore724 (5 comments total)

Thanks for this. Here's an archive.org link.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 8:45 AM on May 28, 2022 [2 favorites]

I have complex feelings about this that I'm better off not sharing, so I'll just ask: is there a rule that if you're at the UN you must have a tiny flag in front of you? Because that is adorable.
posted by phooky at 9:16 AM on May 28, 2022 [6 favorites]

I love PEN as an organization, I even met my wife at a PEN world congress, but there seems to have been no planning beyond “let’s get some well known authors to speak at the UN”. Some of these quotes are almost comically tone deaf.

But, there are touches of grace there by people who rose to the occasion, so I’m glad it happened.
posted by Kattullus at 11:17 AM on May 28, 2022 [8 favorites]

Interesting to note the cases when liberal hawks aren't as interested in "singing the truth and naming lies".

Now ask me how I knew I would find that op-ed before I searched for it.
posted by jy4m at 8:36 PM on May 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

This feels like when Gal Gadot and her celebrity friends sang imagine.
posted by zymil at 1:50 AM on May 29, 2022 [4 favorites]