In order to comprehend the events of recent days, PEN Ukraine has launched a series of conversations entitled #DialoguesOnWar. On October 4, 2022, Ukrainian author Kateryna Babkina held a conversation with the American writer of Ukrainian origin Askold Melnyczuk. This is a transcription of key moments from their conversation.

Since October 2019, the Belarusian PEN Center has been carrying out a systematic collecting of information on violations of cultural and human rights which impact culture workers. This document includes statistics and an analysis of violations from the first half of 2022. Material has been prepared on the basis of generally available information collected from open sources and direct communications with cultural figures.

“To sing a song/The guard with an electric baton in his hand/Ordered me to sing 100 songs.” Liao Yiwu, a prominent poet, reportage writer and folk musician, was arrested for publishing his long poem Massacre and other works to commemorate the Beijing Massacre of 1989, and later sentenced to four years imprisonment on counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement.

“To stay alive, is a true miracle .” Shi Tao, a journalist, writer and poet, was sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years in 2005 for releasing a document of the Communist Party to an overseas Chinese democracy site after Yahoo! China provided his personal details to the Chinese government.

“When the night's chill hit me through the iron window, I seemed to see a row of iron bars between us – the father and son, weeping towards each other; I seemed to see my boy who had lost his father’s guidance turning evil under gangsters’ control and fooling around on the streets all day...” Du Daobin, a government official, writer, and freelancer, was arrested in 2003 for internet writings and sentenced to imprisonment for “inciting subversion of state power”.

“Put out the lamp/ Let only the cigarette burn the night’s coldness/ Spill the wine out the window to the night/ Let the darkness get drunk/ To vomit out another dawn/ A daybreak when perhaps there will be news.” Dr. Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia, husband and wife, writers and activists, were imprisoned, put under house arrest, and separated by the Chinese authorities as a consequence of their struggle for human rights. Deprived of social contact and community interaction, the couple had nothing left to do but imagine a life beyond confinement.

“Several days after that, on the way to school or at home, Droma would quietly take out the half candy to lick it gently. Sometimes when there were no others around at school, she would quietly take it out and lick it a few times. Sometimes at home she would take it out to let her brother lick it a few times and put it back. The sheep dog often stared at Drolma's hands with its big and black eyes, sitting still with an expectant look.” Yang Tongyan (April 12, 1961 - November 5, 2017), a famous dissident writer and social activist better known as Yang Tianshui, was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for “subverting state power” because of his critical essays on overseas websites, as well as his political activism.

“The spring arrived and the earth became light green. At the foot of the high wall, there emerged a patch of tiny grass in light green. Without sunshine, the grass grew thin and yellow. Every day, I concentrated on this patch of light green.” Kang Yuchun, a doctor and writer, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for political issues in 1992.

“Living in the dormitory without any privacy will inevitably create contradiction and hostility, which constrain human nature and twist human character. Anyone who has ever lived in a dormitory has an intimate knowledge about this. Half a dozen people living together in a room less than 10 square meters over the years is incredible to those who live in a free world. However, in China, you have to bear this for a long time.” Zhang Lin, a dissident writer and social activist, was arrested in 1994 and then sentenced to three years of Reeducation-Through-Labor after contacting foreign journalists about human rights violations near his home village.

“ (…) in my days there are beetles/a dream of stardom, the city of Nanjing/and a pair of hands to bury the ruins.” Shi Tao, a journalist, writer and poet, was sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years in 2005 for releasing a document of the Communist Party to an overseas Chinese democracy site after Yahoo! China provided his personal details to the Chinese government. How does the imprisoned travel? What’s his community? Tao reports from a half-buried landscape.

In 2019, PEN Belarus began systematically collecting data on the violation of the human and cultural rights of cultural workers in the country. In 2021, the crisis in Belarus continued, and culture remained the focus of the monitoring. The level of repression faced by cultural workers has not decreased since 2020.

The monitoring by PEN Belarus contains statistics and analysis of the violations that took place in 2021. It was prepared using public information collected from open sources as well as direct communication with cultural workers and representatives of cultural institutions throughout the year.

“Now he was here on an airplane feeling clumsy as he struggled to fill in the immigration card they had just given to him. What was the flight number again? He searched through the carry on bag to try and find the ticket. The entire trip had left him feeling nervous for several weeks beforehand. What was he thinking? Why was he doing this?” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe tells a story of finding home.

“The letter itself sat there on the table. The envelope lay beside it, ripped apart and empty. A few pages with long cursive writing scratched on them was all that had emerged. Those pages just had words written there. Simple words really. Words about a new country, a new opportunity, a new century, a new chance. Words that were about to tear our family further apart.” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe tells a story of new beginnings and lost lands.

“When the kettle was full she turned to the stove to boil it and it was in that moment that she had a feeling that something was not quite right. She had lived with a certain order for so long it was almost as if she didn’t need to look to know. She put the kettle down and turned around slowly. The window sill above the sink was almost bare, as if someone had swept up the stones that had sat there. Julie knew in that instant what it meant and she ran towards the door.” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe tells a story of loss and belonging.

Poet and literary scholar, Dennis Haskell, examines a crucial sense. He drifts into a yellow haze and reports lucidly from a world of unseeing.

“When I studied acting we used to help our pals who had monologues; the help consisted in listening, really listening to the monologue, and believe me it helped! One of my best teachers surprised me by saying: “Very good work, Gianluca! It’s not easy to just listen but you did it perfectly!” Surprising, no? But also very true.” Italian filmmaker, Gianluca Migliarotti, dissects the magic of meeting. Meetings are crucial to both his personal and private life, and with a daily dose of meetings comes the calibration of a valuable gift: listening.

“The most perfect example of democracy in action” – what is that? One answer is: Jazz. Why? And if it is right, what can we transfer from jazz to the process of creating great places?

We met Morten Skriver, an essential European thinker, artist, and writer, in his childhood home near Copenhagen. Skriver has come full circle, slowly settling into suburban life with his family in a paradoxical escape from a capital that, to Skriver, has become suburbanized and lifeless. In his books, Skriver examines freedom, beauty, and human existence. Essential questions are: How can we live together? How can we restore wisdom into our common existence?

We met drummer Lenny White for a conversation on fear, trust, and inspiration. A recurring question was: How do we find the courage to imagine the new?

“Art makes you bigger. It makes people grow. It shoots electricity into our intelligence. It’s like food for the soul and for the mind, so that we can grow and learn and think”, says world-famous Ukrainian pianist and composer, Lubomyr Melnyk, who discovered ‘continuous music’ during the 1970’s.

Places that are truly alive stimulate our senses just right – not too much and not too little.

Close your eyes. Imagine yourself in a Medieval town or city. Stand still and listen. The noise is infernal.

We met Sudanese political cartoonist Khalid Albaih for a conversation on media, freedom of speech, and the importance of art; not the institutionalized, capitalized ‘art world’, but art as a human connection, as a base for society, and as a tool for revolutionizing old systems.