“Los Angeles,” stated Hector Tobar, prolific creator and Friday night panelist on the PEN World Voices Competition, “is a mesmerizing place.” And mesmerizing it was from April 30 to Could 3, as the town welcomed the twentieth PEN World Voices Competition—a milestone yr for a competition based within the wake of 9/11 to counter rising isolationism, xenophobia, and censorship via the enduring energy of literature.
Now in its third yr as a very bicoastal celebration of literature and free expression, the competition introduced greater than 30 occasions and 100 artists, writers, and journalists to each New York and Los Angeles, affirming that language, story, and voice know no borders. Within the Metropolis of Angels, the place “dozens of diasporas meet,” as Tobar famous, tales blossomed throughout landscapes as diverse and vibrant because the individuals who name them house. From Culver Metropolis and Beverly Hills to MacArthur Park and Pasadena, LA pulsed with dialogue, creativeness, and braveness.
Within the aftermath of a few of the most devastating wildfires in remembered historical past, panelists and audiences all through the competition had been alight with their very own ardour for the facility of artwork, whereas reckoning with new challenges rising towards free expression, domestically and internationally. Conversations echoed the duty artists need to bear witness to escalating assaults on free speech and civil liberties from an administration that believes there is just one good story– their very own.
“When the panorama of your life is violently and randomly modified,” creator and Saturday afternoon speaker Ruben Martínez ruminated on the panel “Life in the Pyrocene,” “you marvel, what is going to grow to be of this place? And what is going to grow to be of us?”
As audiences gathered in theater areas, gardens, and museums, we had been reminded of those fears– of the destruction of landscapes each bodily and emotional. As Emmy-nominated director Ava DuVernay asserted throughout Thursday night time’s occasion, “Crafting Courage,” “Your reminiscence is a weapon. The thought of reminiscence is definitely what your enemy desires to take by shifting books off cabinets, by intimidating sure varieties and points of dialog.”
Nevertheless, Los Angeles just isn’t a metropolis unfamiliar with the forces of destruction. And as our metropolis continues to rebuild, audiences are reminded that concern just isn’t an ending. As an alternative, as Peabody Award successful documentarian Shiori Itō reminded audiences, “concern is sweet– concern can create one thing.”
Los Angeles, a metropolis perpetually remade by fireplace and creativeness, stood as the proper stage for this yr’s competition. Its layers of migration, its blurred boundaries of language and belonging, and its constellation of cultures echo the worldwide urgencies on the coronary heart of PEN America’s mission. In a second when freedom of expression faces intensifying threats, the 2025 PEN World Voices Competition reaffirmed that tales are acts of resistance. It was a proud celebration of artists who create regardless of concern, a recognition of those that use house, reminiscence, and private narrative to shift conversations and form hearts. By means of them, we had been reminded of the significance of inventive expression, of connection, of discovering a standard story.
“It’s our job as artists to shock folks and to point out them the reality that they don’t see,” Tobar stated Friday night time. “And, to try this, we have now to stay true to the artist inside us.”
