Nine stories deal with individuals trying to overcome the distances that divide them.

As a fearless poet and prolific essayist and critic, Liu Xiaobo became one of the most important dissident thinkers in the People’s Republic of China. His nonviolent activism steered the nation’s prodemocracy currents from Tiananmen Square to support for Tibet and beyond. Liu undertook perhaps his bravest act when he helped draft and gather support for Charter 08, a democratic vision for China that included free elections and the end of the Communist Party’s monopoly on power. While imprisoned for “inciting subversion of state power,” Liu won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. He was granted medical parole just weeks before dying of cancer in 2017.
              
The Journey of Liu Xiaobo draws together essays and reflections on the “Nelson Mandela of China.” The Dalai Lama, artist and activist Ai Weiwei, and a distinguished list of leading Chinese writers and intellectuals, including Zhang Zuhua, the main drafter of Charter 08, and Liu Xia, the wife of Liu Xiaobo, and noted China scholars, journalists, and political leaders from around the globe, including Yu Ying-shih, Perry Link, Andrew J. Nathan, Marco Rubio, and Chris Smith illuminate Liu’s journey from his youth and student years, through his indispensable activism, and to his defiant last days. Many of the pieces were written immediately after Liu’s death, adding to the emotions stirred by his loss.

A political thriller about strong-minded women and men, The Dark Path to the River tells a love story that moves between Wall Street and Africa.

Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is the history of PEN incarnate. As president of a center, Chair of the Writers-in-Prison Committee, International Secretary, and a PEN International Vice President, she has been a steady and guiding force in the organization and its dedication to freedom of expression for more than one-third of PEN’s first century. Her dedication to literature and human rights personify PEN International. These accounts do what all good writing does: She makes people and events vibrant.

For a century, PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) has brought together writers to celebrate and share literature and to defend those who write. PEN has laid the foundation for a global community of writers who seek out facts, celebrate the creative imagination and champion freedom of expression.

PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line reflects a time when the world was opening up—the Berlin Wall fell; the Soviet Union broke apart; democracies were ascendant around the globe—and PEN, the world’s oldest writers and human rights organization, was often at the forefront. In many countries writers like Václav Havel led the way as they were released from prison.

The year 2021 marked the centenary of PEN International and English PEN, and 2022 marks the centenary of PEN America, PEN France and many other PEN centers in over 100 countries around the world.