21. April 2010 by admin.

Next week:

Reading and Discussion  Wednesday April 28 2010 8PM

Writers Who Cross Borders

The "PEN Centre of German-Speaking Writers Abroad"

Please Join Us Wednesday, April 28, at 8PM

In 1934, German authors who escaped Nazi persecution

and settled in the US, among them Heinrich and Thomas Mann,

Lion Feuchtwanger, Anna Seghers, Ernst Toller, Stefan Zweig

and Alfred Döblin, established the "German PEN Club in Exile."

It united the most important writers in exile and represented

the repressed and oppositional literature of the "other Germany."

After the war, it continued its work under the name of

"PEN Centre of German-Speaking Writers Abroad" - until today.

Its members have the most diverse biographies but share a

commitment to defend free speech and solidarity with

politically oppressed writers and journalists.

In 2009, for the 75th anniversary of its formation

the Centre published an anthology with contributions

 by its current members under the title:

Nachgetragenes (Addenda)

Seventy-five Years PEN Centre of

German-Speaking Writers Abroad

(edited by Gabrielle Alioth and Hans-Christian Oeser)

The volume was launched at the Brecht-Haus in Berlin

in June 2009 and has since been presented in Amsterdam,

Paris, Zürich, Dublin, London, Köln and Solingen.

To conclude this year of remembrance and celebration

of the literary work of its present members the Villa Aurora

invited the PEN Centre to an evening of readings and discussion.

Amongst the members present will be Renate Ahrens, Gabrielle Alioth,

Irmgard Hunt, Cornelius Schnauber et al.

Chair: Hans J. Rindisbacher, Prof. of German, Pomona College, Claremont.

The event was made possible thanks to the generous support of

the Consulate General of Switzerland in Los Angeles,

the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, and Villa Aurora. 

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