Spotlight: Asia
Amplifying Young Voices Across Asia
Editorial Team
| Regional Editors | Aung and Ege Dündar |
| Project Manager | Ege Dündar, Board Member at PEN International |
| Advisors | Ross Holder, Head of Asia Region at PEN International / Salil Tripathi, Board Member at PEN International |
Authors and Persecuted Peers
*Eight contributors on the list will be published later in our Spotlight, running until end of January 2026. Check back soon to discover more young voices from the region.
Table of Contents
By Regional Editor: Aung
Regional Overview
Layers Beneath the Surface
"Let me lose, may justice win."
Aung Cheimt
I was born and raised in Myanmar. I love traveling, and over the years I’ve visited almost every state and region of my country. No matter where I go, I always notice one thing: layers. There are so many layers in our society—of culture, belief, opportunity, and experience. Even though we share one nation, we are not the same.
That realization grows stronger whenever I travel to neighbouring countries. Again, I find different layers—of history, of struggle, of identity. It makes me wonder: why are we so different?
I want to understand these people. I want to know how they think, how they read, how they resist. Traveling gives me glimpses, but it’s never enough. Books help me go deeper. That’s why I always seek out stories and voices from across Asia. Through books, I can step into another person’s world and begin to see through their eyes.
Yet, books too have their limits. In many parts of Asia, censorship shapes what we can say and what we can read. It is frighteningly easy to silence a voice, to shut someone’s mouth.
That’s why I am always eager to listen—to hear directly from real people. I am hungry for their stories. Through this focus on regional voices, I’ve had the chance to listen to my neighbours, to discover their different perspectives and the realities of their societies.
Once again, I see layers—many, complex, overlapping layers. But when I dig deeper beneath them, I find something universal: dignity. Human dignity.
Despite our differences, we never bow. We never surrender. Across Asia, people share a profound love for independence and equality. Whenever we sense injustice or imbalance, we rise and fight back.
So when you read this spotlight, amplifying over 30 young voices from 20 countries, you may first notice the layers—of diversity, of conflict, of difference. But I encourage you to look closer, to dig deeper. Because beneath all those layers lies the truth of who we are.
Aung, Regional Editor from Myanmar. Steering Representative for Asia at PEN International's Young Writers Committee.
Young Voices
"When I became a mother, I did not imagine seeing my child's smile would open portal-like, into a nonstop reel of rushed obituaries to young children in Gaza, or horrifying clips of teenagers in their Levi’s being marched out of their high schools or homes, tackled to the ground in the streets of USA by masked agents."
A Time to Hum, a Time to Sing
17 January 2026
"We do need one another - even when we disagree. We have to acknowledge our sameness... Because in just a few weeks' time, it's as if global tectonic plates shifted under our feet and we've gone past a point of no return."
From Peace and Bloodshed to Change: Gen Z Movement in Nepal
27 November 2025
Ink, Memory, and Revolution: Five Graphic Novels from Asia
14 December 2025
"On the morning of August 5, 2024, I woke to a silence that felt ominous. For weeks, Dhaka—the sprawling, restless capital of Bangladesh, home to more than 20 million people—had been alive with defiance. Students filled the streets chanting against the government, their voices punctuated by the crack of flash grenades and the sting of live rounds fired into crowds."
A Voice That Refuses Silence
20 October 2025
When Home Fell Silent, the World Became Our Voice
20 October 2025
"A realistic look at life as an activist in Vietnam: "You may have heard or read about the significant freeze in government funding for both domestic and foreign aid, a policy shift initiated by the Trump administration.""
Ash on the Lamps of Learning: How Cambridge Blinked
8 September 2025
The Inch You’ll Never Own
20 October 2025
"It is hard to be happy unless we can break the confinement that imprisoned us... A great failure confines us for a long time, but every day we confine ourselves to smaller, shorter-term cuckoo nests with our anger, jealousy,... A broken glass could take away happiness for a few minutes, an argument could take a few days of our lives."
"She did not attend a French schools but she was a good student at Van Hoa High School in Nha Trang. She did not know how to play a musical instrument, but she knew how to enjoy great music."
"Every writer has three minefields waiting for them. Our duty, is to survive them. Everything else is choice, and it comes later. If I could reach out to that young me – lost, alone, and angry, I would say, breathe."
Your Duty is to Survive
26 October 2025
A Lot Became Unimportant Lately and Other Translingual Tatar Poems
26 November 2025
Empty Chairs and Prosecuted Peers
Since the 1980s PEN International has used the Empty Chair to document prosecuted writers and track their cases in our annual Case List. We feature them at events to symbolise a writer who could not be present because they were imprisoned, detained, disappeared, threatened or killed. We invite our community to learn about these young voices being silenced and to show solidarity with them.
Get in touch with us to explore actions you can take.
Empty Chair: Amanda Echanis – Philippines
20 October 2025
Prosecuted Peer: Dr. Mahrang Baloch - Balochistan, Pakistan
18 October 2025
Prosecuted Peer: Umar Khalid - India
18 October 2025
Prosecuted Peer: Gulfisha Fatima - India
18 October 2025
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