2019 PEN World Voices Festival: It Happened To Me

PEN America

Placing the personal story in the public sphere is one of the most powerful and transformative of acts, liberating the storyteller and also giving the listener a deeper and more empathetic understanding. When the stories are life altering, even life threatening, the effect is even more profound: witnessing genocide or war crimes, fleeing your homeland as an economic or sexual refugee and, in the era of #MeToo, recounting episodes of rape or other forms of sexual abuse. Seven writers from around the world give powerful and very personal testimony about what happened to them. With Romeo Oriogun, Scholastique Mukasonga, Grace Talusan, Paul Tran, Pajtim Statovci, Édouard Louis, and Shiori Ito. Hosted by Amana Fontanella-Khan, opinion editor, The Guardian US. This event is part of the World Voices Festival My Story stream, supported by Amazon Literary Partnership.