The Writer’s Block: Jennifer Clement
by Sampsonia Way / March 12, 2015 / No comments
In this edition of The Writer’s Block, former PEN Mexico president Jennifer Clement discusses the writing process behind her novel Prayers for the Stolen.
Jennifer Clement is author of the memoir Widow Basquiat (on the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat) and the novels: A True Story Based on Lies, The Poison That Fascinates, and Prayers for the Stolen, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Book and recipient of an NEA Fellowship for Literature and the Sara Curry Humanitarian Award. Prayers for the Stolen is the first selection of National Reading Group Month’s 2014 Great Group Reads. Her work has been translated into twenty-three languages.
Clement is a Santa Maddalena Fellow and a member of Mexico’s prestigious National System of Creators. She is also the author of several books of poetry including The Next Stranger (with an introduction by W.S. Merwin). In 1997, along with her sister Barbara Sibley, she co-founded the San Miguel Poetry Week.
From 2009 to 2013, Jennifer Clement was president of PEN Mexico and her work focused on the disappearance and killing of journalists. On February 17, Clement read at City of Asylum.
