Breaking the Silence

All PEN World Voices Festival tickets are non-refundable. Please confirm the time and location of your event before finalizing your purchase.

How can stories repeat and reverberate and release us from the tyranny of our mistakes, our traumas, and our confusions? Having suffered through abuse in their youth, both Neige Sinno (Sad Tiger, tr. Natasha Lehrer) and Lidia Yuknavich (The Chronology of Water; Reading the Waves) came to understand how old memories can ambush us in the present.

In their groundbreaking memoirs, each turns to literature (such as Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, and Toni Morrison) to learn to read their own past. In a discussion moderated by acclaimed poet and author Meghan O’Rourke, these writers explore how, in the midst of darkness, the acts of speaking up, asking questions, and telling new stories provide the power to reshape ourselves.

The 2026 PEN World Voices Festival is a celebration of world literature and free expression. The 2026 edition will be the 21st World Voices Festival. Over four days, over 140 writers from over 40 countries will be featured in engaging talks, panels, readings, and activations in New York City and greater Los Angeles.

Visit for more information about the entire festival, as well as PEN America.

This space is ADA compliant. A street level accessible entrance is located on 12th street.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our Box Office team at [email protected] by April 15th to request.

Please ask a Box Office Attendant or festival representative upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact [email protected]

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Church of the Village, 201 West 13th Street, New York, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

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