PEN Club de México	PEN México: Pajaritas de Papel	Ciudad de México 2003: Congreso Mundial del PEN	Quién es Quién

OBJECTIVES

The World Congress of Writers 2003 aims to reflect the diversity of languages and literatures, especially of the Americas, and as such will include some rarely-heard literary voices. At the same time, this Congress of the Americas seeks to expand PEN’s presence in Latin America and strengthen the collaboration between the new PEN Centers in the various countries of Central and South America. As Octavio Paz said so well in First Letters, "Universality does not mean "speaking for all," but rather for each one, for the intimacy of each being."

For almost a century, PEN International’s writers, translators and editors have not only promoted the advancement and development of literature in education and culture, as the foundation for knowledge, but they have also defended the human rights to freedom of thought and expression.

In the current international context, when the divide between wealth and poverty seems to be insurmountable, when a rich North and a poor South have been merged, and above all when we are witnesses to the existence of supranational powers, the World Congress of Writers 2003 will offer a space for the scribes of human memory to study their own participation and present and future contributions.

Through this Congress, PEN International celebrates Mexico’s position as a natural bridge that connects the linguistic and literary traditions in the Americas, and provides a unique chance for writers from countries who have redefined their political and economic relationships to reaffirm the historic and free exchange of ideas and literature. The Congress will likewise offer an opportunity to analyze globalization’s threats to freedom of expression, indigenous literatures and cultural traditions.

The Congress will take place in Mexico one year after the Writers in Prison Committee, during its biannual meeting in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, agreed to highlight PEN’s commitment to confront persistent and emerging threats to freedom of expression and to individual writers and independent journalists the world over.

C O N T E N T S