2020 PEN World Voices Festival Schedule Announced

This year's PEN World Voices Festival will be held by PEN America in New York City from May 4-9. This year's theme for the annual literary festival is "These Truths," celebrating, the nonprofit said, "literature’s deep illumination of cultural, historical, political, and emotional truths in a complex moment when 'truth' is destabilized by the constant undermining of a common set of facts, 'objective' histories are being interrogated and upended, and radical candor about lived experiences is fueling powerful social movements.

The festival will open with a panel featuring Margaret Atwood, Roxane Gay, and Jia Tolentino in conversation with Rebecca Traister, and will close with musical performance by Jon Batiste with authors Suleika Jaouad, Zadie Smith, and Tara Westover. Other authors and artists on the lineup include Andrés Barba, Ishmael Beah, Mahogany L. Browne, Lydia Davis, Amitav Ghosh, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Hunter Harris,  Jeremy O. Harris, Yuri Herrera, Jill Lepore, Sara Mesa, Lynn Nottage, Ben Okri, Elif Shafak, Jenny Slate, Danez Smith, Brandon Taylor, David Treuer, Jeanette Winterson, and Jamila Woods, among others.

Click here for the full festival lineup, which will be kept updated as new events are added.