Geography is literary destiny. Come attend a panel discussion featuring women writers from four continents on the powerful notions of home, how gender differences influence a writer’s literary landscape, what women writers around the world have in common, and if there is such a thing as a female imagination. Featured panel speakers are Melania Mazzucco, Margriet de Moor, Helen Oyeyemi, Ann Provoost and Ayu Utami; the discussion is moderated by Jessica Hagedorn. This event is free and is presented with PEN World Voices and The New York Festival of International Literature. For more information, click here or call 212.334.1660

Jessica Hagedorn was born in Manila in 1949 and moved to San Francisco when she was 14. She is a poet, playwright, and screenwriter whose works include three novels, Dream Jungle, The Gangster of Love, and Dogeaters, and a collection of poetry and prose, Danger And Beauty. She is the editor of Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction and Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World. Her screenplays includeFresh Kill, a feature-length film directed by Shu Lea Cheang, and four episodes of The Pink Palace, an animated series created for Oxygen TV. Among her plays are Dogeaters, adapted from the novel; Stairway to Heaven; and Most Wanted, a collaboration with composer Mark Bennett.

Born in Rome in 1966, Melania G. Mazzucco has written subjects and screenplays for films, inventing stories or re-writing those of others; while for theater she developed Una pallida felicit? (A Pale Happiness), which was performed theaters such as the Teatro Stabile in Turin, Piccolo Teatro in Milan, Teatro Valle in Rome, and won the Gold Medal for Italian Dramaturgy in 1996. In 1996, she published her first novel, Il bacio della Medusa, and her second two years later,La camera di Baltus. Her most recent book, Vita, won the 2003 Strega Prize, Italy’s leading literary award.

Margriet de Moor was born in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in 1941. After a career as a classical singer, de Moor made her writing debut with a collection of stories, Op de rug gezien (Seen From Behind), followed by three novellas in one volume, Dubbelportret (Double Portrait). These books earned her the Lucy B. and C. W. van der Hoogt Prize in 1990. Her highly praised first novel, First Grey, Then White, Then Blue won her the AKO Literature Prize, for which her second novel, The Virtuoso was also nominated. She has since published other novels such as The Duke of Egypt andThe Kreutzer Sonata.

Helen Oyeyemi was born in Nigeria in 1984 and has lived in London since the age of four. She completed her book The Icarus Girl just before her 19th birthday while studying for her A-level exams. She is now a student of social and political sciences at Cambridge University. Oyeyemi is currently at work on her second novel.

Born in Poperinge, Belgium in 1964, Anne Provoost studied literature at the University of Louvain. She is the author of four novels. Her books have been translated into 12 languages and received major literary prizes. Her latest novel is now longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Provoost is a member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature. She lives with her husband and three children in Antwerp.

Ayu Utami was born in Bogor, Indonesia in 1968, and grew up in Jakarta. Her first novel, Saman, was awarded the Best Novel from Dewan Kesenian Jakarta in 1998 and in 2000 she was a Prince Claus Award laureate for opening new horizons for modern literature in Indonesia. A founding member of Indonesia’s Alliance of Independent Journalists, Ayu Utami currently works for Radio 68H, an independent news radio station that is broadcast all over the country, and for the art center Komunitas Utan Kayu. She writes regular opinion pieces in a newspaper and a magazine in Indonesia.