The Standard

Karl Lagerfeld Studio by Todd Selby

We love books.  They are anthologies of history, of photographs and of intellectual properties spanning the centuries.  Books tell stories of lives beyond our own, depict worlds within our own and guide us through the adventures that are our existence.  We don’t know where we would be without them.

This month, New York City welcomes the seventh annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature into its arms, and as a perpetual supporter of the arts and sciences, The Standard, New York will serve as its official hotel partner.

In true literary fashion, the festival, with its events and readings, will be host to the world’s greatest literary minds including Giaconda Belli, Laurie Anderson, Samuel Delany and A.M Homes if we’re only naming a few.  Events will be scattered across the city offering insight into the minds of scholars who dissect the simplest ideas into complex analyses.  

To kick off the week, Festival Chair Salman Rushdie and Malcolm Gladwell along with others will explore the living nature of writing and will feature a duo-reading by Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg.  Tickets are $30 and $20 for PEN Members.  

And what would a literary festival be without a talk about sex?  On Monday the 25th at 11pm, acclaimed writer Edmund White will conduct a Sex Speakeasy in Le Bain on the 18th floor of The Standard, New York.  Tickets are $20 and $25 for PEN Members.

The event most likely to cause the greatest stir is entitled Revolutionaries in the Arab World with current Schnabel belle, Rula Jebreal.  The panel will focus on the current political changes tearing through the region as discussed by the revolutionaries of the future, bloggers and citizen journalists.  Tickets are $20 and $15 for PEN Members.

On Wednesday night at 1030pm, The Standard Talks series curated by Sunny Bates of TED will continue with a second discussion focusing on Ghost Stories.  Summon the supernatural and delve into the paranormal while the literary ghost is called to walk amongst the living.  BOO!  Tickets are $20 and $15 for PEN Members

Most exciting will be Molly Crabapple’s live installation in the Plaza of The Standard, New York.  Every day during the festival, Molly will be painting individual panels which will fit together to visualize the many ways one can experience written word.  Once at the hotel, visit the Living Room where PEN’s official pop-up bookstore will be located.

For more information and a full schedule of events, visit PEN World Voices.