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Megha Majumdar to feature at PEN World Voices Festival 2026
The Carnegie Medal-winning author will join a May 1 panel on dystopian fiction and politics in New York
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Malvika Choudhary - Tue, 31, Mar 2026
- 17:36 EDT
- 18
Megha Majumdar / Megha Majumdar's website
India-born novelist Megha Majumdar will participate in the 2026 PEN World Voices Festival, bringing together more than 140 writers from over 40 countries in New York City and Los Angeles from April 29 to May 2.
Majumdar, whose second novel A Guardian and a Thief won the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, will appear in a conversation examining how dystopian and near-future fiction reflects political forces shaping personal lives.
Also Read: Kalayil, Majumdar in 2026 Women’s Prize longlist
She will join Moroccan-American novelist Laila Lalami and PEN America co-CEO Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf for the discussion on May 1.
Organized by PEN America, the annual festival focuses on literature’s role in defending free expression and fostering cross-cultural dialogue. This year’s edition comes amid what organizers describe as rising barriers to international exchange and increasing threats to free speech.
“The 2026 World Voices Festival is an act of jubilant defiance—an insistence on the power of literature,” said Sabir Sultan, director of the festival and literary programs at PEN America, citing global conflicts, political polarization, and attacks on democracy as the backdrop for this year’s programming.
Majumdar, who was born in Kolkata and is based in New York City, first gained international recognition with her debut novel A Burning (2020), a New York Times bestseller that explored class, justice, and political ambition in contemporary India.
The book won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2021 and the Whiting Award in 2022, and was longlisted for the National Book Award.
Her follow-up novel, A Guardian and a Thief, has continued that trajectory, earning the 2026 Carnegie Medal and a nomination for the National Book Award in 2025. The novel has also been longlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The PEN World Voices Festival, founded in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraq War, continues to position itself as a platform for global literary exchange and resistance to cultural isolationism.
This year’s programming includes discussions on war and displacement, technology and public discourse, climate change, and the role of translation in literature.
Majumdar joins a lineup that includes writers such as Judith Butler, Cory Doctorow, Ha Jin, and George Packer, among others.
Discover more at New India Abroad.
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