World Voices Festival 2025 takes over The Village!
For four days this spring, the Village becomes the beating heart of global storytelling. From April 30 to May 3, PEN America’s World Voices Festival returns for its 20th edition—a milestone that brings together over 80 writers from more than 30 countries in a spirited, joyful celebration of literature’s power to connect across borders, languages, and experiences.
World Voices Festival 2025 takes over The Village!
For four days this spring, the Village becomes the beating heart of global storytelling. From April 30th to May 3rd, PEN America’s World Voices Festival returns for its 20th edition—a milestone that brings together over 80 writers from more than 30 countries in a spirited, joyful celebration of literature’s power to connect across borders, languages, and experiences.
This year’s festival is a vibrant constellation of voices—both beloved and newly emerging—who remind us that stories don’t just reflect the world, they shape it. Among the headliners: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jennifer Egan, Masha Gessen, Jodi Picoult, Guadalupe Nettel, and Lynn Nottage. But look closer and you’ll find surprises tucked into every corner: panels that stretch from autofiction to climate fiction, and conversations that dance between horror, romance, and everything in between.
Saturday, May 3rd, brings a particularly rich harvest of events to the Village. At Judson Memorial Church, the panel “Erased: Media Erasure and Authoritarianism” joins sharp thinkers Masha Gessen, Yaqiu Wang, and Anna Nemzer, while at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club “Bold Voices: Latin American Writers in Conversation” highlights the electric work of Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Guadalupe Nettel, and Fernanda Trías—each offering a fresh take on what it means to write from and about Latin America today.
Beyond the stage, the festival spills into the streets. At Astor Place, the ArtLords, a collective of artists known for turning public walls into vivid canvases of protest and beauty, will create a live mural, accompanied by a panel on the role of public art. A few blocks away, Lafayette Street transforms into a book-lover’s dream, as the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses co-hosts a lively independent literary fair—part marketplace, part meeting place for editors, writers, and readers alike.
And when the final evening arrives, the tone turns reflective but resolute. Judson Memorial Church hosts “Under Siege: The Perils of Journalism in an Age of State Repression,” a closing-night conversation honoring World Press Freedom Day. The event promises to be more than a warning bell—it’s a reminder of the value of truth and the people who risk everything to tell it.
What makes World Voices special isn’t just the star power or the programming. It’s the way it confirms the position of the Village and New York as a crossroads of global ideas—a place where people gather not just to enjoy art and culture, but to boldly think out loud together about the world we share.
Tickets and full event details are available at pen.org/festival. If you’re lucky enough to be in the Village, don’t miss your chance to listen in.
