Come al solito, riferisco sul Congresso di Québec trascrivendo il Report
in inglese che ho pubblicato giorno per giorno sulla pagina PEN International
on Facebook.
Pur non essendo dettagliatissimo, fornisce una informazione di massima
sulle attività del Congresso e in parte sugli attori.
La notizia più importante è che dopo 94 anni il Presidente del PEN
International è una Presidente, Jennifer Clement.
A titolo di cronaca, il sottoscritto è stato rieletto nel Board per altri
tre anni.
October 11
It’s a long trip to Québec, but in the evening I
arrived to the Hotel. Luggage was not lost, the shuttle was there, a good trip,
all in all.
There was a dinner with the Board, the PEN Int’l
staff and the PEN Québec staff. A good night sleep will put everything in
order.
October 12
An early start, we left the Hotel at 8.00 to go
to Palace Morrin, the old debtors’ prison of Québec City and now a library. A
very nice and sunny day, I would have bet on it…
Delegates and participant will enjoy a walk in
the city while we would work (in a wonderful old library, to be honest).
After the Board meeting, we were invited to a
“Verre de bienvenue” for everybody at the Maison de la Littérature (an ancient
church J). So many friends to meet …
Delegates and Participants will attend a
performance “Murmurs and torrents from the Great Turtle” while we will have a
dinner with the three candidates to the Presidency.
I will tell you tomorrow something about that.
October 13
Yesterday’s dinner was thought in order to allow
the candidates to the Presidency to shift their place at the table so that they
could speak to as many people possible.
This day was dedicated to the meetings of the
Committees, WiPC, T&LRC, WfPC and WWC.
Apart of the news already shown in this page – elections of Chairpersons of
WiPC and WWC, which have to be ratified by the General Assembly – I’m not in
the position to report in detail about the woks of each Committee, because I
had to be temporarily present in every one of them.
Also in this occasion the candidates to the
Presidency were asked to participate to the meetings and were asked questions
about the way they look at the issues the Committees deal with and how they
would like to proceed in case of election.
Carles Torner, the Executive Director, was also
explaining to the delegates during these meetings how the Secretariat would be
organised by responsibilities after the successful moving to the new offices.
Before the next appointment we got a bit of time
I personally employed to shoot as many photos as possible in a quick walk in
the old City. It started raining exactly in the moment I joined the hotel…
At 19.00 we were transferred to the Musée de la
civilisation where the formal Opening evening took place.
At 21.00 I decided to call it a day and left
with some colleagues for a last drink before surrendering to the jet lag J.
October 14
Today the General Assembly will officially
start.
Before it, we will meet in the Place d’Youville
where the three Empty Chairs are dedicated to Raif Badawi, Amanuel Astrat and
Juan Carlos Argenat Medina for a minute of silence.
October 14, 2nd part
Actually, we met in a quite windy day before the
Empty Chair of Raif Badawi (his wife and children were present and said some
words).
After breakfast in the Congress Centre (a good
idea, delegates will gather in numbers and chat before starting works) we
convened in the main hall. After a minute of silence in memoriam, we remembered
our dear Lobsang Chotka and there was the introduction to the Empty Chair.
Some legal procedures were completed and we got
a session of about 1 hour in which Centres had the possibility to mention their
initiatives and suggestions. More than 20 Centres did.
The reports of the President and of the
Secretary left more space to the report of the Treasurer: discussion followed.
The report of the Board was presented by Marketa
Heikalova and its main subject was to call for ideas about the 2016 Congress
after Puerto Rico had to renounce. There were many interventions.
Carles Torner presented the Executive Director’s
report. Discussion followed.
After that, the four Chairs of the Committees
took the floor and spoke about the Committees activity and programs.
During lunchtime the three candidates to the
Presidency were at the disposal of the delegates for a Questions &
Answers session.
A short discussion opened about the regulations
and principles adopted by PEN International in the matter Corruption, Bribery
and Fundraising ethics.
The session was ended by an interesting Panel
about the Charlie Hebdo case, led by Marian Botsford-Fraser with the
participation of delegates of Emmanuel Pierrat (France), Andrew Solomon
(USA East), Pervin Sieda (Bangladesh) and Ismaila Samba Traoré (proposed Centre
Mali).
After the closure of the first day, there was a
program about the Chinese literature.
In the evening there was a show in the Palais
Montcalm whose theme was “Free to create” with the participation – among others
– of Margareth Atwood. I did attend it only partially.
Tomorrow it's elections time.
October 15
It’s becoming rather cold in Québec… this
morning at 08.15 you could see by your breath that we were near to zero
Celsius. The Empty Chair of today was Amanuel Astrat of Eritrea.
All our best wishes to our Friend Ly Djibril,
President of the proposed PEN Mauritania, who fell ill and will not be able to
be present for the presentation of PEN Mauritania.
The Québec Declaration on Literary Translation
and Translators was approved unanimously. I will translate it in Italian and
publish it somewhere.
The PEN International Principles on Authors’
Moral Rights and Copyright were also unanimously approved.
Some projects of Centres were brought to the
attention of the Assembly: Ola Larsmo (Swedish PEN) presented the Dissident
Blog, Gioconda Belli (Nicaragua PEN) presented Libro Foro, an initiative
related mainly to children, Aline Davidoff (PEN Mexico) presented a video about
PEN Protesta, Carme Arenas (PEN Català) presented DELETRIX, a graphic work by
Fontcubierta.
Romana Cacchioli introduced a representative of
OUTWRITE who spoke about LGBTQI issues.
Re the Congress 2016 there are a number of
proposals the Board is entitled to examine and decide upon by a specific
delegation by the Assembly, voted unanimously.
You have already read the news about the result
of the elections. PEN international has got finally a woman for President,
Jennifer Clement. She said after the vote; ‘Thank you to all of you.
Everyone is saying congratulations. But this is not a prize, it’s not an award.
It’s an act of trust. I hope that I am worthy of your trust.’
I would like to express my gratitude to Vida
Ognjenovic and Zeynep Oral for their active and important participation in this
exceptional election.
I think also that we all should be grateful to
John Ralston Saul for his outstanding activity during the last six years.
As for the Board, Regula Venske (German PEN) was
elected and I was re-elected.
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| Presentazione al Congresso |
The new Search Committee is composed by Zoe
Rodriguez, Eugene Schoulgin, Jens Lohmann, Larry Siems and Alicia Quiñones.
They will elect their Chairperson.
The Assembly ratified unanimously the elections
of Salil Tripathi as Chair of the WiPC and of Elisabeth Nordgren as Chair of
the WWC.
A presentation of the activities of Icorn and
the PEN Emergency fund in the field of protection of writers at risk in cooperation
with the WiPC followed.
The new Mali PEN Centre was presented by
Koumanthio Zeinabou Dialle (PEN Guinea) and by its President Ismaila Samba
Traoré. It was unanimously received.
Anton Arrufat – a Cuban writer – spoke about the
possibility of a new Centre in Cuba.
Andrew Solomon (American PEN) spoke about
censorship in China.
The delegates and participants then moved
by bus to the Théâtre La Bordée for a session of Free to speak led by Adrienne
Clarkson (I decided to have a 25 minute walk…).
Being quite tired, I decide to have dinner on my
own in a bistrot in the Old City and not to go to the Maison de la Littérature
for the evening of multilingual readings (scheduled 21.00 – 23.55). I apologize
to the colleagues.
October 16
Another chilly day: the Empty Chair of today was
Juan Carlos Argeñal Medina of Honduras.
The Assembly started with a request of the Centre Langue d’Oc of permission to
change its name into PEN Occitan, granted unanimously. The dormancy of Spanish
PEN was voted with two abstentions.
PEN Mauritania was presented by Mohamed Sheriff
and represented by Carles Torner in absentia. Accepted unanimously.
The Empty Chair was presented by Marian Botsford
Fraser and Dina Meza.
Dalmira Tilepbergenova made the Report about the
last Congress in Bishkek.
About Ethiopia and Eritrea, a statement was
prepared and posted on Twitter, you may see it on this page:
#81PENCongress
asks the intl. community to support Eritrean & Ethiopian people in
their fight for #RealDemocracy
against authoritarian govts
I cannot report in detail about the 26
resolutions that were approved afterwards, but this task took a substantial
part of our time.
A panel about Mass surveillance was held with
the participation of Dmitri Vitaliev, an expert in this field.
The Assembly ended with a lunch at the
Restaurant Le Parlementaire in the House of Parliament, during which meetings of
the Networks were hold. A Delegates Photo was made at the end – funny, a pic
under a light rain, no umbrellas allowed…
In the afternoon we had a cruise on the St.
Lawrence river and a little time for a walk before the Closing Party which took
place at the Maison de la Littérature, where we had the occasion to thank PEN
Québec, Emile Martel, the staff and the volunteers for this interesting
Congress and to greet all the friends of PEN International.
Tomorrow I will leave for the Board retreat and
on Sunday I will leave for Trieste.
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| Il nuovo Board a fine Congresso |
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P.S. During the retreat we learned that Ly
Djibril, the President of proposed PEN Mauritania died in the hospital where he
had been admitted. PEN International as a whole is very near to the Family and
to the colleagues of PEN Mauritania.
