Totally Lit: Writers of Conscience
Dates
Monday 29 September | 3.45pm - 4.45pm
Free event | Bookings recommended
Ages
Adults
Duration
60 mins
Site access information
WA Maritime Museum is mostly accessible, excluding tours aboard the HMAS Ovens. Call 1300 134 081 for assistance. More about accessibility and amenities >
Join this discussion about writers whose words have confronted power and the price of free speech in contemporary times.
Writing poetry or fiction comes from the writer’s imagination, but what if your thoughts are seen as too dangerous?
We say we believe in free speech, but when writers around the world are thrown in jail, what can we do to protect this fundamental right? Join us for a conversation with and about the writers of conscience whose words have confronted the powerful, and the price they’ve paid for this brave act.
About the artists
Ma Thida is a renowned Burmese human rights writer, activist, and former prisoner of conscience joins PEN Perth for a Totally Lit conversation. In 1993, Ma Thida was sentenced to 20 years in prison for championing freedom of expression and literature in Myanmar. She was a prisoner of conscience for 6 years atInsein Prison before being released in 1999.
Upon her release, Ma Thida continued her advocacy for the rights of writers and journalists. She co-founded PEN Myanmar in 2013, serving as its inaugural President, and became the Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee in 2021. Ma Thida has been a stalwart in Myanmar’s decades-long struggle for democracy, one made more urgent by the country’s recent military coup and ensuing civil conflict.
Afeif Ismail is an international bilingual Sudanese-Australianwriter, playwright, poet, dramaturg, and human-rights activist. Extracts of his works have been translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese and Swedish. Afeif’s poetry, short stories and personal essays have been widely published including in the Westerly, the Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry, Fremantle Poets 3: Performance poets, Unlimited Futures and others. In Arabic, he has published seven poetry collections and three creative essays collections.
Afeif won the prestigious 2022 Ballina Region for Refugees Seeking Asylum Poetry Prize. Also, he was awarded the Naji Naaman’s Literary Prize in Lebanon in 2015. Barking Gecko Theatre Company in WA commissioned and produced his children’s play, “The African Magician,” and it was nominated for the Australian Writers’ Guild Award for Best Children’s Play in 2011. He was awarded the Australian National Playwrights’ Conference (ANPC) Bursary in 2008. Afeif was shortlisted for the Kit Denton Award for Writers of Courage in 2007.
Presented by the Perth chapter of PEN International, a non-profit organisation fighting for human rights and responsible freedom of speech.
