Through Foreign Eyes

This is a free event, but registration is required.

Aatish Taseer (A Return to Self) and Joanna Pocock (Greyhound) take us on expansive journeys and invite us to see the world through their eyes in their hybrid travel memoirs.

After India’s prime minister Narendra Modi revoked his citizenship, exiling him from his home, Taseer began a search spanning Turkey to Mexico, asking questions about the forces that define culture and nationality. In Greyhound, Pocock retraces a cross-country trip from Detroit to Los Angeles that she took seventeen years earlier, reflecting on the changes over those years, environmental disasters, and increasing industrialization.

Moderated by professor, journalist, and author Susan Shapiro (The Forgiveness Tour), this conversation will discuss travel as an act of refraction and discovery, opening up questions about oneself, national histories, and the evolution of cultures and communities.

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 40+ 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.

The LGBT Center is a fully accessible venue.

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.

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Host or Publisher PEN America