The Empty Chair by PEN SA

In the sixth and final episode of Season Two of The Empty Chair, PEN SA president Nadia Davids chairs a conversation about poetry and social justice with Esther G. Belin and Toni Giselle Stuart. Esther is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and lives on the Colorado side of the 4 corners region. She is one of four editors of The Diné Reader and has two poetry collections, From the Belly of My Beauty ,...

In the fifth episode of Season Two of The Empty Chair, Yvette Hardie chairs a conversation about theatre and social justice with Mino Lora and Mandla Mbothwe. Yvette is a theatre director, producer, educator and advocate, focusing on theatre and performance for young audiences. Mino, Founding Executive Director of People’s Theatre Project, is an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who has been w...

In the fourth episode of Season Two of The Empty Chair, science writer Leonie Joubert chairs a conversation highlighting the relationship between environmental journalism and social justice. Our guests are both award-winning journalists. Debra Utacia Krol is an enrolled member of the Xolon Salinan Tribe from the Central California coastal ranges. She reports for The Arizona Republic. Tunicia Phill...

In the third episode of Season Two of The Empty Chair, PEN SA board member Bongani Kona interviews Tope Folarin. Tope talks about fatherhood, the American dream, his apprenticeship as a writer, his novel A Particular Kind of Black Man , reading Damon Galgut, autofiction, literary gatekeepers, and the need to construct new realities. In this episode we stand in solidarity with Selahattin Demirtaş f...

The second episode of Season Two of The Empty Chair is devoted to the Transatlantic legacy of Charlotte Maxeke. Writer and PEN SA board member, Sisonke Msimang is joined by three guests: Athambile Masola, writer, researcher and UCT lecturer; Adanma Mbonu, a recent graduate from Wilberforce University in Ohio, U.S.A. and Buhle Ngaba, South African actor, writer and speaker. Together they discuss th...

In the first episode of Season Two of The Empty Chair, the president of PEN South Africa, Nadia Davids, is in conversation with Dr Ma Thida, medical doctor, writer, human rights activist, former prisoner of conscience and current chair of PEN International's Writers in Prison Committee.  Ma Thida reads from Prisoner of Conscience: My Steps Through Insein and discusses her experience of impris...

Introducing Season Two of The Empty Chair, a podcast from PEN South Africa. Season Two: A Transatlantic Conversation features novelists, poets, theatre makers, artists, musicians, activists, journalists, legal scholars, academics and historians based in South Africa and the United States of America. These conversations promote open dialogue and highlight shared histories. The podcast explores issu...

In the fifth and final episode of this season of The Empty Chair, PEN SA board member Sisonke Msimang interviews celebrated author and journalist Zubeida Jaffer. Zubeida talks about her books, writing in difficult and joyous circumstances, her certainty during the struggle against apartheid as well as her hopes for future generations. In this episode we stand in solidarity with Dr Stella Nyanzi, a...

In the fourth episode of The Empty Chair, PEN SA board member Bongani Kona and writer, teacher and researcher Hedley Twidle revisit The Plague by Albert Camus (translated into English from the original French, La Peste ). They discuss  the novel's contemporary resonance and what illness does to one's  experience of the world. This episode pays tribute to Osman Kavala, a  publisher,...

In the third episode of The Empty Chair, PEN SA board member Pierre de Vos, constitutional law lecturer Nomfundo Ramalekana and trainee human rights lawyer Elisha Kunene examine the implications of the lockdown for the judiciary and human rights in South Africa.  They stand in solidarity with Sedigeh Vasmaghi, an Iranian theologian, poet, writer and women’s rights activist.

In the second episode of The Empty Chair, PEN SA Board Member Nicky Falkof chairs a conversation with three astute  journalists: Zandile Bangani, Khadija Patel and Mia Malan. They assess the health of the South African media landscape and stand in solidarity with Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, a novelist and journalist from Uganda

Update : Since recording episode one of our Empty Chair podcast, we have been alerted to reliable information that Chimengül Awut has been  released. We celebrate her freedom. In the inaugural episode of The Empty Chair, three wonderful South African writers Terry-Ann Adams, Siphokazi Jonas and Megan Ross are in conversation with Nadia Davids, president of PEN South Africa. They reflect on pr...

Introducing The Empty Chair, a podcast from PEN South Africa, featuring conversations about writing, freedom of expression, resilience and solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Each of our five episodes is dedicated to an imprisoned writer who has been harassed, detained, and sometimes tortured by the state. 'Young Writers  in the Pandemic', the first episode of The Empty Chair,...