Jennifer Clement is President Emerita of the human rights and freedom of expression organization PEN International and the only woman to hold the office of President (2015-2021) since the organization was founded in 1921. Under her leadership, the groundbreaking PEN International Women’s Manifesto and The Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto were created. As President of PEN Mexico (2009-2012), Clement was instrumental in changing the law to make the crime of killing a journalist a federal crime.
Clement is the author of the novels A True Story Based on Lies, The Poison That Fascinates, Prayers for the Stolen, Gun Love, and Stormy People, as well as several poetry books, including Poems and Errors, published by Kaunitz-Olsson in Sweden. Clement also wrote the acclaimed memoirs Widow Basquiat on New York City in the early 1980s and the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, which NPR named the best book of 2015 in seven different categories, and The Promised Party on her life in Mexico City and New York. Clement’s books have been translated into 38 languages and have covered topics such as the stealing of little girls in Mexico, the effects of gun violence, and the trafficking of guns into Mexico and Central America, as well as writing about her life in the art worlds of Mexico and New York.
Clement is the recipient of Guggenheim, NEA, MacDowell, and Santa Maddalena Fellowships, and her books have twice been a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book. Prayers for the Stolen was the recipient of the Grand Prix des Lectrices Lyceenes de ELLE(sponsored by ELLE Magazine, the French Ministry of Education and the Maison des écrivains et de la littérature) and a New Statesman Book of the Year, picked by the Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro. Gun Love was an Oprah Book Club Selection, National Book Award, and Aspen Words Literary Prize finalist. Among other publications, Time magazine named it one of the top 10 books of 2018. At NYU, she was the commencement speaker for the Gallatin graduates 2017 and gave the Lectio Magistralis in Florence, Italy, for the Premio Gregor von Rezzori. Clement is a member of Mexico’s prestigious Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte.
For Clement’s work in human rights, she was awarded the HIP Award for contribution to Latino communities by the Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP) Organization, and she was also the recipient of the Sara Curry Humanitarian Award. Most recently, she was given the 2023 Freedom of Expression Honorary title on World Press Day by Brussels University Alliance VUB and ULB in partnership with the European Commission, European Endowment for Democracy, and UNESCO, among others. Other laureates include Svetlana Alexievich, Zhang Zhan, Ahmet Altan, Daphne Caruana Galizia, and Raif Badawi.
Jennifer Clement was raised in Mexico, where she lives. She and her sister Barbara Sibley founded and directed the San Miguel Poetry Week. Clement has a double major in anthropology and English Literature from New York University (Gallatin) and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine (Stonecoast). She was named a Distinguished Alumna by the Kingswood Cranbrook School.
Jennifer Clement
The Promised Party, Jennifer Clement
A Man
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Okay, let's get on with the show.
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You're listening to Episode 277.
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Jennifer Clement is President Emerita of the Human Rights and
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Freedom of Expression Organization PEN International
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and the only woman to hold the office of President since the
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organization was founded in 1921 .
00:02:26
Under her leadership, the groundbreaking PEN International
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Women's Manifesto and the Democracy of the Imagination
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Manifesto were created.
00:02:35
As president of PEN Mexico from 2009 to 2012, clement was
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instrumental in changing the law to make the crime of killing a
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journalist a federal crime.
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Clement is the author of the novels A True Story Based on
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Lies, the Poison that Fascinates , prayers for the Stolen Gun,
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love and Stormy People, as well as several poetry books,
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including Poems and Errors, published by Knuts Olsson in
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Sweden, including Poems and Errors published by Knuts Olsson
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in Sweden.
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Clement also wrote the acclaimed memoir Widow Basquiat
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about New York City in the early 80s and the painter Jean-Michel
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Basquiat, which NPR named Best Book of 2015 in seven different
00:03:17
categories.
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Clement's books have been translated into 38 languages and
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have covered topics such as the stealing of little girls in
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Mexico, the effects of gun violence and trafficking of guns
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into Mexico and Central America , as well as writing about her
00:03:33
life in the art worlds of Mexico and New York.
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Clement is the recipient of the Guggenheim, nea, mcdowell and
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Santa Madalena fellowships, and her books have twice been a New
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York Times Editor's Choice book.
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Prayers for the Stolen was the recipient of the Grand Prix de
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Lettrice Le Ciel de L and a New Statesman Book of the Year,
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picked by the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro.
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Gun Love was an Oprah Club selection, as well as being a
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National Book Award and Aspen Awards Literary Prize finalist.
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Time magazine, among other publications, named it one of
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the top 10 books of 2018.
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At NYU, she was the commencement speaker for the
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Gallatin graduates of 2017, and she gave the Lectio Magistralis
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in Florence, italy, for the Premier Gregor von Ressori.
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Clement is a member of Mexico's prestigious Sistema Nacional de
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Criadores de Arte.
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For Clement's work in human rights, she was awarded the HIP
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Award for contribution to Latino communities by the Hispanics in
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Philanthropy organization, as well as being the recipient of
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the Sarah Curry Humanitarian Award.
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Most recently, she was given the 2023 Freedom of Expression
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Honorary title on the occasion of World Press Day by Brussels
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University Alliance, vub and ULB , in partnerships with the
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European Commission, european Endowment for Democracy and
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UNESCO, among others.
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Jennifer Clement was raised in Mexico, where she lives, and has
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a double major in anthropology and English literature from NYU
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and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine.
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She was named a Distinguished Alumni by the Kingswood
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Cranbrook School.
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Jennifer's recent book is titled the Promise Party Carlo
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Basquiat and Me.
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Hi, jennifer, and welcome to the show.
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It's such an honor to have you here.
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Speaker 2: Oh, Mandy, I'm so thrilled to be invited to your
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podcast.
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Thank you so much.
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Speaker 1: It's my pleasure and I need to thank our mutual
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friend who introduced us, the author and poet, susan
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Scolati-Florence.
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Thank you, susan.
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Yes, I adore your latest book, a Promise Party.
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It is absolutely beautiful and we'll get into that a little
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later, but I would love to start by learning about you and your
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transition from dancing to poetry and novel writing.
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Speaker 2: Well, I had always written poetry as a child and
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poetry was something valued in my home.
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Especially my father was very into literature and poetry.
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So I began writing poetry and I never sort of thought of it as
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something that I would do.
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I always thought of it as something that was just an
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essential part of myself.
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But I had always danced.
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I started ballet sort of like often happens with little girls,
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you know, maybe four or five or something like that.
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So I always loved the dancing.
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And then I actually went to New York as a dancer and then, being
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there, I had a dream.
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I really wondered should I write that in my memoir?
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Is it too strange?
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But I thought, well, it's the truth, that's actually what
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happened.
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And since then I've always been extremely interested by this
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acting on dreams and in fact in the Bible there are 21 dreams
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and dreams that are acted upon.
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And so the dream sort of said to me that that was child's play
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, that was wanting to stay childlike and, in a way, not
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grow up, you know.
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So I acted on the dream and then decided, yeah, that really
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my destiny was to write, and I was the most surprised of all
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that I could write plot and character, because I just wrote
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poetry and then I thought, well, I'll try and write a novel, and
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then I was able to.
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So I was also surprised that I could do that.
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Speaker 1: I enjoy hearing about other people's dreams.
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I've been journaling my dreams for over 30 years now probably
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35 years and I met with a Jungian analyst I think for over
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10 years.
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She was fantastic and what I found was Jung completely
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understood the creative mind.
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Dreams give us clues into our daily life.
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Have you acted on one?
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Oh, yes, I think.
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Once you understand how dreams work and the symbolism in your
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dreams, you can't help but not act on them.
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Speaker 2: Exactly yeah, yeah.
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So I decided to put it in the book.
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I just thought well, it's actually the truth.
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I had a dream, and the dream told me that this was child's
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play, that I needed to grow up, that I wasn't the swan or the
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nutcracker or the princess.
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I had to grow up.
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So I understood that dream.
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Yeah, and then I transferred out of the dance department and
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went to another part of NYU and did two degrees.
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I did anthropology and English literature.
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So it worked out.
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Speaker 1: I was fascinated that you studied anthropology and
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that you worked in the museum.
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I can't help but think, after reading your book, that studying
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anthropology is a wonderful attribute for an author.
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Speaker 2: I think so.
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The Promised Party.
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It's about many things, but one of the things that it is, it's
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about the things that made me a writer, the things that made
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this journey of becoming a writer and, of course, working
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with Dr Robert Carnero, who had the Margaret Mead chair, who was
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an eminence and taught me about the rigor of research and all
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these things and yet had such a deep appreciation for poetry and
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myth and all of that.
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That really was an important part of my life, of being who I
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am today.
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So when I go into the field and , for example, for Prayers for
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the Stolen, and interviewing mothers whose daughters have
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been stolen and going to these little communities, I'm taking
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all that anthropology knowledge with me to the literary
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expression of all of that.
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Speaker 1: One aspect that stands out in your memoir, the
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Promise Party, is the structure of the writing.
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At times, the reader feels as if they're in conversation with
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you.
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Your voice and your writing are deeply intimate.
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Was the structure organic or did you experiment with this
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style?
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Speaker 2: I love it that you asked me this question, because
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only another writer asks such a question.
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So I even wondered if I should have had some sort of something
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about this in the book.
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But anyway, I really thought about this carefully because one
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of the things that I have noticed is, in the last sort of
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30 years maybe, a lot of memoirs read like novels, and I don't
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think that lives are like novels .
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It's very satisfying for the reader, it's very satisfying for
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the publishing house because it's an easy arc, and it's
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satisfying.
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Everything gets tied, and Nabokov and none of them felt
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that their memoir had to sound like a novel.
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So then I came across two things that were like the guiding
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principle of the book.
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One was TS Eliot's essay on the metaphysical poets, where he
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says that life is a fragmentary whole.
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So the fragmentary whole.
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And then Borges said that memory is a fragmentary whole.
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So that are the fragmentary whole.
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And then Borges said that memory is a pile of shattered
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mirrors.
00:11:11
So it was those two ideas that I thought okay, this is the road
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, I'm going to do it in fragments, with the idea of the
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whole and the idea of shattered mirrors, and so those were the
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ideas that guided me to write the book in this way.
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Speaker 1: And in the book you also go back and forth from your
00:11:32
childhood into different parts of your history and you do it
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really well, because that is sometimes a tricky thing to do,
00:11:40
to be jumping from the timelines , but it's so smooth the way you
00:11:44
did it, and I think it's because every aspect of your
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life that you've chosen to write about reflects beautifully from
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your past into your future.
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Speaker 2: Thank you.
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So you do mean that when I go into the future, if something
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takes me to the future and then I come back to the past?
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Speaker 1: Yes, it's absolutely beautiful the way you weave the
00:12:03
story back and forth.
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Memoirs can be tricky things to read not only to write but to
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read.
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But the Promise Party is brilliant.
00:12:10
On page 134, in the section titled Trotsky's Rabbits I do
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love that chapter heading you write about your friend Fanny
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Del Rio and how she was the first friend who shared your
00:12:23
interest in politics, literature and philosophy.
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You wrote quote at the Agora we ordered coffee and read Karl
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Marx as we tried to understand the revolutions that were going
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on in Latin America.
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End quote.
00:12:37
How did the unrest in Latin America affect the people of
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Mexico at that time?
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Speaker 2: You know, we were very deeply affected and one of
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the things that I think about I just said the book is about my
00:12:49
becoming a writer, but it's also the tale of two cities.
00:12:51
So the first half of the book is Mexico City and the second
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half of the book is New York City and so Mexico.
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I feel that that ends with the North American Free Trade
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Agreement.
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So Mexico was very sort of cut off from the United States and
00:13:07
much more involved in Central and South America in terms of
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influence and very much by as I talk about also in the book, by
00:13:15
French literature and French ideas.
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So yeah, so Mexico had always been, and I hope it continues to
00:13:21
be, but it's changed a lot.
00:13:23
But at that time it was a country that received everybody.
00:13:27
It was very generous in that way.
00:13:29
So there were many sort of refugees coming from.
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You know, the 1973 overthrow of Allende in Chile, or you know,
00:13:42
things like the Sandinistas was a big subject at the time, the
00:13:46
Cuban Revolution, obviously, the dirty war in Argentina, which
00:13:50
was horrific, that went on for more than 10 years, and then
00:13:54
Mexico also received refugees that were fleeing from Franco.
00:13:58
So there's a huge Spanish community that comes afterward,
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starting like in 1939, more or less, and for about 10 years.
00:14:07
So you know, it had this kind of feeling of people from
00:14:11
everywhere fleeing from terrible things and sadly, terrible
00:14:17
things are continuing to go on.
00:14:18
I mean right now Venezuela, nicaragua, honduras, they're all
00:14:23
in terrible situations.
00:14:25
The violence in Chile.
00:14:26
So you know, latin America has a dark past in many ways, but at
00:14:32
that time it was full of sort of refugees coming from these
00:14:37
different places.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: My view on borders and immigration is probably a
00:14:42
lot different to many people who are listening to the show, and
00:14:45
it stems from being an immigrant and from living in other
00:14:48
countries and traveling.
00:14:50
I actually feel that we need to have more open borders.
00:14:53
Yes, there need to be rules and regulations, sure, but we're
00:14:57
facing a climate crisis and it just seems ludicrous to me that
00:15:03
we are not opening our borders more and helping others who need
00:15:06
help.
00:15:06
Why wait for the crisis when we should be doing something now?
00:15:12
Speaker 2: I completely agree.
00:15:13
I mean there's Mexico and the United States.
00:15:16
Now I mean I know that there's more Mexicans in the United
00:15:19
States legally than Canadians in Canada, you know.
00:15:22
So all the Mexican families have some family member in the
00:15:26
United States.
00:15:27
It's been really interesting for me.
00:15:29
I've given some classes, like at Irvine University in California
00:15:34
, about the greatness of Mexico, and I feel like a lot of people
00:15:38
don't understand.
00:15:39
You know, just something this simple when the United States
00:15:42
was having its first Thanksgiving dinner in, we'd
00:15:46
already had a music conservatory , a printing press and a
00:15:58
university for a hundred years.
00:15:59
Mexico is so ancient and so complex.
00:16:00
And the other thing is, when Virginia Woolf says, where are
00:16:01
Shakespeare's sisters, where is Judith Shakespeare?
00:16:03
In a room of one's own?
00:16:05
Well, she was in Mexico, one of the greatest writers who ever
00:16:09
lived, the nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who Octavio Paz wrote
00:16:13
a whole book on her.
00:16:14
I mean she's as great as all these great men, definitely a
00:16:19
Judith Shakespeare.
00:16:20
And she was in Mexico.
00:16:22
Not to mention, we can talk about the food, the pre-Hispanic
00:16:26
cultures, their incredible art, the art, mexico under Spanish
00:16:30
rule 400 years, and what that also meant in terms of the
00:16:34
beauty and the Baroque.
00:16:36
And I mean it's so complex and I feel that a lot of people
00:16:40
don't know this about Mexico, so I do actually love to teach it.
00:16:44
Speaker 1: That sounds like a class I need to do.
00:16:47
It sounds fascinating.
00:16:48
There's a part in the book where you write about Frida
00:16:51
Kahlo's braid.
00:16:52
Can you share that story with our listeners?
00:16:54
I loved it.
00:16:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the thing about the memoir is that I also
00:17:00
since I thought about this a lot like how do we was, am I
00:17:02
going to write this?
00:17:02
I realized also we are also who we are by stories of others
00:17:09
stories we've overheard, songs, we've heard movies, we've seen.
00:17:14
All those things make us who we are.
00:17:16
And, for example, for me, there's one chapter that's only
00:17:21
the quote of Diego Rivera after Frida dies, and he married her
00:17:25
twice and we have photos of both those marriages, which are two
00:17:29
of the photos that I really love and she dies and then he
00:17:33
actually says only now that she has died do I understand that
00:17:38
she was the most important person being in my whole entire
00:17:43
life.
00:17:43
And to think that Diego Rivera could only understand that after
00:17:48
she died.
00:17:49
What do we not understand yet?
00:17:51
What are we blind to?
00:17:53
So that was always something that was in the air for me, like
00:17:57
what am I not seeing?
00:17:58
And so I put that quote in.
00:18:00
So, yes, it's not my quote, but it's something that affected me
00:18:04
deeply.
00:18:04
You know this idea of what don't we know, what do we know
00:18:09
too late.
00:18:11
And then the braid.
00:18:12
So the braid is not my story, but Ana Arruesti, who was the
00:18:17
grandmother of my great best friend, aline Davidoff, told me
00:18:21
the story of how you know, when she got to Mexico from Europe
00:18:26
this was before this, this is the Sephardic side of that
00:18:30
family.
00:18:30
They got there in the early 1900s.
00:18:33
They all had huge, long braids and she cut it off and she put
00:18:38
it in a drawer and then she gave it to Frida to wear as a
00:18:43
hairpiece, because Frida was complaining that she didn't have
00:18:46
enough hair to make a good braid and so that was actually
00:18:49
Anna's braid.
00:18:51
Now in my novel, Prayers for the Stolen, I actually have a
00:18:55
character who used to go and this is true because she's based
00:18:58
on somebody I know who would go from door to door in the 60s
00:19:04
knocking to buy people's braids, because there was no synthetic
00:19:08
hair, so people would keep their braids and sell their braids,
00:19:12
just so beautiful.
00:19:13
But yeah, so that story of Frida's braid it's not my story
00:19:18
but it's part of what makes me who I am to know that story and
00:19:22
share it.
00:19:23
Speaker 1: Frida Kahlo died in 1954.
00:19:26
But your family, when they moved to Mexico, lived in the
00:19:30
house next door to hers, correct ?
00:19:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, she had already died, and so had Diego a few
00:19:34
years beforehand.
00:19:35
But it was Diego Rivera's daughter who lived there with
00:19:39
her two children, who were my best friends growing up.
00:19:41
So I was in that house all the time and it hadn't changed at
00:19:45
all.
00:19:45
Everything was still there.
00:19:46
Nobody had cleaned out a closet and to this day all that stuff
00:19:49
is still there Maybe not her bobby pins anymore, but I know,
00:19:56
does the house have spirits living there?
00:19:59
Yeah, you feel the presence, totally yeah, and you still, to
00:20:02
this day, you feel the presence.
00:20:04
Even though it's now a museum, you definitely still feel the
00:20:07
presence of those two people there.
00:20:10
Speaker 1: Another place I need to visit Now.
00:20:12
You and your sister, barbara Sibley, founded and directed the
00:20:16
San Miguel Poetry Week.
00:20:17
Is this event still running?
00:20:19
Speaker 2: No, it stopped after the pandemic.
00:20:21
Yeah, we had it for 22 years and then the pandemic came and,
00:20:26
like many things, we decided that that was the closing, the
00:20:29
closure for it, but it was marvelous for 22 years.
00:20:33
Speaker 1: Yes, susan was telling me about it.
00:20:35
She said it was fabulous.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: It really was.
00:20:37
Yeah, we started every year with poetry and it was so
00:20:40
inspiring and that everything has its time, you know.
00:20:44
Speaker 1: That's for sure.
00:20:45
Now, you served as president of PEN Mexico from 2009 to 2012,
00:20:51
and you were elected as the first woman president of PEN
00:20:55
International in 2015.
00:20:57
What is the PEN International Women's Manifesto and the
00:21:01
Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto.
00:21:06
Speaker 2: So to date I'm the only woman who has been
00:21:08
president.
00:21:08
So Penn International was founded in 1921 after the First
00:21:13
World War with the idea a kind of a mea culpa, because it was
00:21:18
sort of the idea was how had writers contributed to
00:21:21
xenophobias and hatreds?
00:21:23
And what if there were this network of writers all over the
00:21:27
world, you know, working towards peace and freedom of expression
00:21:31
and tolerance?
00:21:31
And so it was founded in London and people like Virginia Woolf
00:21:36
were founding members of the organization and the idea was
00:21:42
that it wasn't a political organization.
00:21:44
But very soon thereafter came the Second World War and the
00:21:49
burning of books and sort of Nazi sympathizers taking over
00:21:52
the German Penn Center.
00:21:53
And that is when John Galsworthy, who was president of
00:21:57
Penn at the time, said and this is actually quite important
00:22:01
because he said actually human rights are supra-political,
00:22:05
they're above the political.
00:22:06
And then HG Wells writes, who was also president of Penn,
00:22:10
wrote his incredible book the Rights of man, and out of that
00:22:14
comes the universal declaration of human rights and the idea
00:22:20
that human rights are supra-political, which is so
00:22:24
important and it's actually a Penn idea, but anyway.
00:22:26
So Penn basically defends freedom of expression all over
00:22:30
the world.
00:22:31
We have chapters in 150 countries and sadly, the
00:22:37
organization has grown and grown and grown because freedom of
00:22:41
expression is at risk in so many places in the world, in places
00:22:45
that you would never have imagined.
00:22:46
Would we ever have imagined banned books in the United
00:22:50
States?
00:22:50
It's sort of inconceivable.
00:22:51
So we ban books but we don't ban bullets.
00:22:55
How about that?
00:22:55
We need to print that up.
00:22:56
So you know, and America has had to really work with this
00:23:03
banned book problem.
00:23:04
But at Penn International, you know, we have many countries
00:23:07
that are now banning books, silencing writers.
00:23:12
So to answer your question about the manifestos, as the only
00:23:17
woman president I really felt I had to do a lot to try and help
00:23:21
women writers that that had never really been addressed
00:23:24
within the organization.
00:23:25
We did a lot of studies on many things, including, for example,
00:23:30
in the English language, which is the powerful language for
00:23:34
publishing, when women win prizes, which is now getting
00:23:38
quite close to parody.
00:23:40
In 98% of the cases the novel was about a man.
00:23:45
So still, the preference for the male story, the importance
00:23:50
of a man's story, is still superior to, consciously or
00:23:54
unconsciously, the story of a woman or the story of a girl.
00:23:57
So you know, we're working with all of this.
00:24:00
So I created the woman's manifesto for the organization
00:24:06
and it has transcended pen because UNESCO and the United
00:24:13
Nations have used it as the core of their woman's gender work
00:24:18
and it's gone to many, many organizations and one woman at
00:24:23
who was the head had been the head of amnesty international
00:24:26
feels it's one of the most important feminist documents in
00:24:30
the last 30 years.
00:24:31
So I thought a lot about how to do it and what I wanted to say,
00:24:36
and a lot of these feminist things are quite angry and I
00:24:42
wanted to address the sorrow of the loss of women's knowledge
00:24:48
and creativity.
00:24:48
So the Penn International Women's Manifesto is a work of
00:24:52
sorrow, so it's different in that sense.
00:24:55
It's about loss.
00:24:57
Speaker 1: There's so much to unpack in everything you just
00:24:59
said.
00:25:00
Of course, one of the standout things for me is when you said
00:25:03
we ban books, but we don't ban guns.
00:25:06
It's a lot to think about.
00:25:07
It's a very powerful sentence.
00:25:09
I'd love to share a thought with you and get your comments
00:25:13
on it, and I thought about this when you said that the Women's
00:25:18
Manifesto addresses the sorrow of the loss of women's knowledge
00:25:23
and creativity.
00:25:24
When I chat with my sons or other young men about feminism,
00:25:29
there's one aspect of feminism that pops up and I would really
00:25:33
appreciate your thoughts on this .
00:25:34
This is a quote from one young man.
00:25:37
Feminism has been really tough on my generation of men.
00:25:42
There are men in my generation who don't want to go out anymore
00:25:46
, who are scared to say anything .
00:25:49
For some, the drive to become a successful husband or father is
00:25:54
no longer there.
00:25:55
They're almost embarrassed by any success they may achieve.
00:25:59
End quote.
00:26:00
I've wondered about this too.
00:26:02
I think it's the way we speak about feminism, but I would
00:26:06
really love your thoughts.
00:26:07
Speaker 2: You know I don't have an answer, but what your sons
00:26:11
are saying I've heard before.
00:26:13
I also have a 35-year-old son, so we've talked about this and
00:26:18
in fact it's odd that you bring this up, because I was speaking
00:26:20
to a friend earlier this morning and she was saying we're
00:26:23
talking about what's happening in the United States and the
00:26:27
handmaid's tale and all these things, and she was saying how
00:26:32
these three boys were saying you know it's very confusing and
00:26:38
hard, and also women are excelling so much.
00:26:41
You know there are more women in medical school, more women as
00:26:44
lawyers.
00:26:45
You know women are doing, you know doing a lot and doing it
00:26:49
very successfully.
00:26:50
So you know, I don't I'm not sure I have the answer, but in
00:26:54
my own sort of decision I decided that I wanted to address
00:27:00
the sorrow of the loss and these.
00:27:03
I think.
00:27:04
You know, I think it's complex, because we do want women to be
00:27:09
able to have an equal life, you know, and one of the things that
00:27:14
we talk about a lot in pen, which is very important actually
00:27:17
in pen, is how societies have been changed because of
00:27:22
literature.
00:27:22
So, for example, like Oliver Twist, thanks to that novel, you
00:27:27
know, the child labor laws were changed.
00:27:29
We don't even think of the journalism.
00:27:31
You that novel.
00:27:32
So novels can give empathy.
00:27:35
So when I think of Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte, I mean it's
00:27:40
thanks to those books that we can own property, that we can
00:27:45
inherit property, that we can earn a living.
00:27:48
So in many ways the greatest population that's been enslaved
00:27:53
has been women.
00:27:54
We did everything for free and we had nothing back.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you, I don't have an answer for this,
00:28:00
but I think it's worth talking about, and I like listening to
00:28:05
what young people have to say from every side of the equation.
00:28:09
I do too.
00:28:09
That's how we grow, right?
00:28:12
Yeah?
00:28:13
Speaker 2: And I don't know what the answer is, but definitely I
00:28:17
think it's a confusing time for both men and women.
00:28:20
Speaker 1: Yes, I agree, you were talking about journalism a
00:28:24
few minutes ago and, as the president of PEN Mexico, you
00:28:27
were instrumental in changing laws to protect journalists.
00:28:30
Were there any laws in place protecting journalists in Mexico
00:28:35
before this?
00:28:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:28:37
So the difference is the laws that were in place were state
00:28:40
laws.
00:28:40
So very often if a journalist was killed in a corrupt state by
00:28:46
covering, let's say, the mayor or the governor or important
00:28:50
businessman who might have been a drug trafficker, very often it
00:28:54
might have been those and in some cases we know for sure it
00:28:57
were those people who had actually killed the journalist.
00:29:00
So it needed to become a federal crime.
00:29:03
It had to be raised to a federal crime and many
00:29:07
organizations journalist organizations and Amnesty
00:29:10
International had tried to get the law changed.
00:29:13
But the thing that happens with Penn that is so exceptional is
00:29:16
that you can call on a global body of intellectuals, so you
00:29:21
can call on all the presidents of every center, all the writers
00:29:24
who have received, let's say, the Nobel Peace Prize and the
00:29:27
Nobel Literary Prize, and you know the whole Swedish Academy
00:29:32
and you know all the sort of great writers can come together
00:29:36
and create a lot of pressure.
00:29:37
So that's what I did.
00:29:39
I did a campaign of shame to shame the Mexican government
00:29:43
through all these great voices and the great worldwide
00:29:46
intelligence of people in academia and in all kinds of
00:29:52
prized writers, et cetera, to point the finger and say this
00:29:56
needs to be changed because we had so many journalists being
00:29:59
killed.
00:29:59
I have to say the law hasn't made it better for journalists,
00:30:03
but at least symbolically, it's a good thing.
00:30:06
Speaker 1: Yes, and that's a scary thought and I hate to say
00:30:09
it, but I think it's going to get worse during this second
00:30:13
Trump administration, trump presidency.
00:30:15
Oh yes, that's why it's important we keep funding NPR
00:30:20
National Public.
00:30:20
Speaker 2: Radio.
00:30:21
Exactly, that might be one definite thing to go.
00:30:23
Yeah, and I want to speak a little because you also asked
00:30:27
about the Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto and this
00:30:30
is also very important to me because it's Penn and we're the
00:30:33
largest and oldest association of writers in the world.
00:30:37
It was important to take a stand on the imagination in
00:30:41
these times because the cancel culture has been so vicious and
00:30:46
young writers is.
00:30:47
I'm really worried for young writers, like, will they be able
00:30:51
to write, write outside of their group and outside of their
00:30:55
experience without being attacked and canceled?
00:30:59
And I just wanted to create a document and I actually did it
00:31:02
with the chairman of the Nobel Prize for Literature that wants
00:31:16
to write not from their group and not from their experience.
00:31:17
You know, at least Penn has a document where that gives them
00:31:18
the freedom to do that.
00:31:19
I mean, I always give the example of.
00:31:22
You know, men have written about women giving birth in
00:31:26
beautiful ways.
00:31:27
You know, you have to be able to have the freedom to imagine.
00:31:33
We had to imagine going to the moon to get to the moon.
00:31:37
Speaker 1: And we have to imagine peace for there to be a
00:31:40
chance of peace.
00:31:41
Speaker 2: Exactly and so yeah, so I just felt it was very
00:31:44
important to have a document that, and it does speak.
00:31:48
Finally, we started out talking about dreams, but the opening
00:31:51
is okay, I don't have it in front of me, but Penn
00:31:57
acknowledges that literature has no frontiers.
00:32:00
That is also the frontiers of the imagination, and we need our
00:32:05
imagination to be as free as dreams the freedom of our dreams
00:32:09
.
00:32:09
When we go to sleep, our mind has to have that freedom,
00:32:13
Otherwise we are practicing self-censorship, and that's the
00:32:17
worst form of censorship, and we're entering a very dangerous
00:32:21
phase of self-censorship and fear.
00:32:24
Speaker 1: And talking about the subject of self-censorship and
00:32:27
fear, during the Obama campaign, shepard Fairey did those
00:32:31
fabulous portraits and they were everywhere, on every telephone
00:32:36
pole around the country.
00:32:38
I love seeing them, and he also did portraits of Kamala Harris
00:32:42
for the last election, but honestly, I have not seen a lot
00:32:48
of political art in this country lately.
00:32:51
You're right, I hadn't even thought of it.
00:32:53
Yes, and I'm concerned.
00:32:55
I worry that it is being self-censored and that it is
00:33:00
because of fear.
00:33:01
We don't know what the Trump presidency is going to bring us
00:33:06
as far as censoring what we can and what we can't do, which is
00:33:09
terrifying Self-censorship because they're afraid.
00:33:13
Yeah, yeah, in some ways it feels like the psychological
00:33:18
evolution of man has just gone backwards.
00:33:20
It's so frustrating.
00:33:22
And not to even get started on women's rights.
00:33:26
Speaker 2: There's no discourse.
00:33:27
There's no.
00:33:28
Let's agree to disagree, but with respect.
00:33:33
So I mean nobody wants to say what they think or what their
00:33:38
views are because they're afraid they'll be attacked or silenced
00:33:42
or heckled or dismissed.
00:33:45
I mean, in academia right now it's very dangerous.
00:33:48
What's going on?
00:33:49
Everybody's terrified of saying what they think.
00:33:52
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I started this podcast was way
00:33:55
back in 2020, during lockdown our first lockdown and I wanted
00:34:01
to support independent bookshops and authors.
00:34:03
Throughout the last couple of years, I've realized the
00:34:07
importance of small and medium presses.
00:34:09
The owners and publishers of these small and medium presses
00:34:13
have a lot of courage.
00:34:14
They take on books and authors that the big traditional houses
00:34:19
probably wouldn't take on, and I just admire them so much for
00:34:23
that.
00:34:23
Because we need to be able to hear and read these voices.
00:34:27
Yeah, well, thank goodness we have literature.
00:34:30
Yes, never take it for granted.
00:34:32
Yeah, I truly believe that by reading well-written fiction, it
00:34:37
helps us to become more empathetic towards one another.
00:34:40
I agree.
00:34:42
Speaker 2: Well, so much so that you know it can transform
00:34:45
societies, that empathy that you can read about Oliver Twist and
00:34:49
you say this can't be.
00:34:50
Or you read Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre and you think, my
00:34:54
God, if she doesn't have some nice cousin or brother, she's in
00:35:01
the workhouse, if, but she's probably on the street.
00:35:04
I have a poem about this one woman who, in 1776 or something,
00:35:09
lived in a haystack.
00:35:10
She had nobody, nobody and couldn't work.
00:35:14
You know what do you do if you can't inherit and you can't work
00:35:17
?
00:35:17
So yeah, so I mean, literature is very important for creating
00:35:24
empathy and putting yourself in the life of another person.
00:35:26
Speaker 1: Jennifer, I was flipping through your book again
00:35:28
this morning and I was interested how did your dad get
00:35:32
to know JFK?
00:35:34
Speaker 2: Just in the civil rights movement.
00:35:35
He was just passionate about changing you know that horrific
00:35:42
situation of, you know, blacks being banned from being in
00:35:45
certain places and etc.
00:35:47
And so, yeah, so it wasn't like he was getting a salary, so,
00:35:49
yeah, so it wasn't like he was getting a salary.
00:35:51
He was one of the volunteers, very passionate, present, close
00:35:57
volunteer, so much so that they were invited to the inauguration
00:36:02
and then, when they came to Mexico, it was my parents who
00:36:05
greeted them and received them.
00:36:07
I wouldn't say they were like best friends or anything, but
00:36:12
there was a recognition in him of my father's work.
00:36:17
Yeah, and they were both.
00:36:18
Both my parents were very you know my mother, who worked in
00:36:22
that subversive group for women to help them learn about birth
00:36:26
control, because Mexico, being a Catholic country, there was no
00:36:28
birth control, there was no birth control, and so it had to
00:36:31
be a subversive secret movement called, you know, women's health
00:36:35
, but it was where they taught women how not to have babies and
00:36:38
what they could do, etc.
00:36:40
Etc.
00:36:40
Which was illegal.
00:36:42
Speaker 1: Sounds like your compassion for others came
00:36:45
directly from your mom and dad.
00:36:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, or more than compassion.
00:36:48
I think we were all my siblings , we were all raised that you
00:36:53
had to give back.
00:36:54
I mean you had to do something.
00:36:56
You know that you could.
00:36:57
You had a duty to give back to the world in some way.
00:37:00
I mean you were raised with that idea.
00:37:03
Speaker 1: The way you're talking about your parents
00:37:05
reminds me of mine, because they were always giving back to
00:37:08
their community and you know, not just giving money, which
00:37:12
they did whenever they could afford it, but actually getting
00:37:15
in there, getting your hands dirty, cooking for people,
00:37:18
delivering the food, delivering clothes to the needy.
00:37:21
I remember at one stage one of dad's patients had to go into
00:37:26
hospital and she was a single mom, so he brought the daughter
00:37:29
home and she lived with us for quite a while.
00:37:31
That was the kind of thing our parents did.
00:37:33
I think that reflects on me and I've been able to carry it
00:37:37
through to my children, which is a true gift.
00:37:39
I think actually getting in and doing the work is super
00:37:45
important and do something.
00:37:47
Speaker 2: And for me it was a big deal when I read Camus' the
00:37:50
Rebel.
00:37:50
I must have read that when I was about 18 or 19 and
00:37:55
understood that the artist is also a rebel.
00:37:58
And so I mean I've written about the stealing of girls,
00:38:02
I've written about the trafficking of guns, I've
00:38:05
written about you know all kinds of things, and then of course,
00:38:09
the pen work.
00:38:10
But I realized that within my literature I can work as a rebel
00:38:16
, as somebody who's trying to change the world, and that's
00:38:21
just another way to act.
00:38:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, as we were talking earlier, it reminds me
00:38:26
of Shepard Fairey.
00:38:27
He puts in the sweat and the labor to bring us fantastic art
00:38:32
that says something.
00:38:33
Let's talk about books.
00:38:35
What are you currently reading?
00:38:36
So I'm reading.
00:38:38
Speaker 2: Actually, I haven't read the whole book ever before.
00:38:40
I've read some of the stories.
00:38:42
I'm reading a manual for cleaning women, lucia Berlin,
00:38:45
which is just amazing, amazing.
00:38:47
I don't know if you've ever read it, but if you haven't,
00:38:50
it's fantastic.
00:38:51
Yeah, so she died.
00:38:53
Let me see what it says.
00:38:54
She died in 2004 and, um, she lived in mexico city, so I
00:39:00
didn't actually know this about her.
00:39:01
So I'm rereading all of this because the stories on mexico
00:39:04
city I haven't, um, read those.
00:39:08
So this is what it looks like.
00:39:09
Introduction by lydia davis.
00:39:11
But, yeah, I really recommend it.
00:39:13
A Manual for Cleaning Women.
00:39:15
Lucia Berlin Sounds like a great book.
00:39:18
Speaker 1: Jennifer, thank you for all you do to make the world
00:39:20
a better place for your writing and I highly recommend your
00:39:24
latest book, the Promise Party.
00:39:26
It is fantastic.
00:39:27
Thanks for being on the show.
00:39:29
Speaker 2: Thank you, and thank you so much for inviting me.
00:39:47
Speaker 1: I'm really really so grateful.
00:39:48
Thank you, and family, and on social media, and remember to
00:39:52
subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this
00:39:55
podcast.
00:39:56
To find out more about the Bookshop Podcast, go to
00:39:59
thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a
00:40:04
review wherever you listen to the show.
00:40:06
You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram
00:40:11
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00:40:15
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00:40:18
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00:40:22
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00:40:25
The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, mandy
00:40:29
Jackson Beverly, theme music provided by Brian Beverly,
00:40:33
executive assistant to Mandy, adrian Otterhan, and graphic
00:40:37
design by Francis Perala.
00:40:39
Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.
00:40:42
Thank you.
