By Edward Nawotka

PEN, the international organization that supports the freedom to write, has relaunched PEN Atlas, its portal for international news. It will offer weekly essays and articles from a global Who’s Who from the literary world. It’s first essay “Writing in A City That’s Collapsing” comes from Athens-based writer Gazmend Kapllani, and is well worth reading.

Here’s more from the site:

The PEN Atlas is your gateway to a world of literature. Every Thursday, we post literary dispatches from around the world, showcasing the very best international writers. We hope to bring new insights into the rich literary landscape that may be found beyond the English language.The amount of foreign literature published in English is far too low. We hope the PEN Atlas inspire literature lovers to sample new writing from other countries, and encourage publishers to bring that writing to the British market.The goals of the PEN Atlas

• To promote literature as a means of intercultural understanding by providing a forum for writers (publishers, translators, booksellers, bloggers, critics) to share their appreciation of writing from a wide range of languages and cultures.
• To add to the internationalism of the UK literary arena by bringing world writing to an English-language audience.
• To overcome cultural boundaries within today’s diverse English society by creating a resource which supports English PEN’s programmes’ and values.

All content is commissioned and edited by Tasja Dorkofikis, who will be inviting a wide range of contributors from around the world about to give their views on contemporary and emerging literature. If you would like to pitch or reprint an article then please get in touch.

The PEN Atlas is project of English PEN’s Writers in Translation Committee and is supported by Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts programme.