P.E.N.

P.E.N. is an international literary association whose brief but consequential role in the narrator’s account is to connect him with a young poet from his homeland. The introduction brings the poet to New York City during her recovery from heart surgery and develops into a friendship; the story later contrasts that personal connection with the pressure exerted on her by her country’s writers’ union.

Introduction and Assistance

About a year after the publication of The Painted Bird, P.E.N. contacted the narrator about the poet, who had traveled to the United States for complicated heart surgery. The operation had not achieved all that her doctors had hoped, and she did not speak English. P.E.N. explained that she needed assistance during the first months after the operation. The account establishes the association as the intermediary that brought the narrator into contact with her, without attributing the surgery or its arrangements to P.E.N.

The Poet and the Narrator

The poet was in her early twenties, had already published several volumes, and was regarded as one of her country’s most promising young writers. The narrator had known and admired her work for years and welcomed the prospect of meeting her. During her recuperation, they walked around New York City, and he often photographed her against the parks and skyscrapers of Manhattan. They became close friends. The association’s initial referral thus opened a relationship that extended beyond the practical assistance she needed while recovering.

Limits of the Connection

The poet applied for an extension to her visa, but the consulate refused to renew it. Unwilling to abandon her language and family permanently, she had to return home. Later, through a third person, the narrator learned that her country’s writers’ union had demanded a defamatory story about her New York encounter with him. She initially resisted, but colleagues invoked the union’s role in making her surgery possible and paying for her postoperative medical attention to press her to comply. The account does not place P.E.N. in this later episode; instead, it shows the precarious circumstances surrounding the poet after the initial connection. The narrator never received a response to his effort to tell her he understood her position, and he later heard that she had died of a heart attack.