Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum a bastion for persecuted writers

Israel Centeno has written several books: 10 of them, in fact. However, it was his 2002 work, “El Complot” that lost him his country, his home and his former life.

Forced to flee his native country of Venezuela because of political pressure and intimidation, Centeno now resides in Pittsburgh. His new lifestyle is significantly different than the one to which he was previously accustomed, but he’s able to write and lives in an environment in which he and his family are safe. This is thanks to City of Asylum Pittsburgh.

City of Asylum Pittsburgh is part of an international network of programs that provide shelter to exiled writers. If political or social forces cause a writer to feel threatened, or they are forced to leave their country, City of Asylum helps the writer by providing shelter and safety for as long as necessary.

In Centeno’s case, City of Asylum Pittsburgh is the preferred option to his home in Venezuela, where he and his family felt threatened. Centeno recounted being assaulted on the street multiple times and, in one instance, being left with a broken arm. He said that when he left his country, he was considered “a menace.”

Now that he is under the wing of City of Asylum, however, things are different.

According to City of Asylum Pittsburgh’s Marketing and Communications Manager, Elizabeth Baisley, the program shelters one or two exiled writers at a time, providing them a rent-free house, a living stipend and health care. Additionally, City of Asylum Pittsburgh provides additional services, such as legal aid, translation services, job placement, language lessons and “whatever it takes to enable the writer to progress to a stable and independent life as a writer in exile.”

Exiled writers, Baisley said, are permitted to retain their housing for as long as they wish. Their individual spending stipend and medical care is limited to two years. City of Asylum Pittsburgh, she said, “is supported through the generosity of individual donors — a community of people right here in Pittsburgh who believe in the cause of protection of persons and of human rights.”

Founding

The international City of Asylum network has its roots in the mid 1990s, when world-renowned author Salman Rushdie and a band of other writers realized they might be able to work together to provide their fellow authors with safety from persecution. Rushdie, who authored the controversial novel “The Satanic Verses,” which includes a biting portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad, was forced into hiding in 1989 when Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him. Along with his colleagues, Rushdie’s goal was to give aid to writers who found themselves in similar situations, and who were subsequently unable to publish their work or continue writing or felt as if they were in danger.

In 1997, Rushdie spoke in Pittsburgh about the International Cities of Refuge Network, which he and other writers had begun to establish in Europe. Diane Samuels and Henry Reese were in attendance when Rushdie spoke in Pittsburgh that day. They contacted the International Cities of Refuge Network in Europe with the hope of establishing a branch in Pittsburgh.

At first, they received no response. However, they continued to express interest in the potential for a City of Asylum in Pittsburgh. Finally, in 2003, they were able to begin work with American author Russell Banks, who was working on expanding City of Asylum network to the United States.

The United States network is currently made up of chapters in Las Vegas, Ithaca, N.Y., and Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh’s branch of City of Asylum was founded in 2004, and has since operated a sanctuary on the North Side. Since then, City of Asylum has expanded its activities. It publishes an online magazine on Sampsonia Way, which Baisley describes as “a journal devoted to literature, free speech and social justice.” It also organizes public readings by international writers and works on collaborative projects with local organizations.

“For a variety of reasons, we think that the creation and development of community plays an important role in the exiled writer’s progress toward a stable life in exile. We believe that we’re fostering a community of writers, readers and neighbors here on the North Side,” Baisley said in an email.

Most importantly, however, City of Asylum allows the exiled to continue their work as writers.

The writers

In its first year of operation, City of Asylum Pittsburgh brought Huang Xiang and his wife to Pittsburgh. Having suffered through time in prison and even torture for his poetry, which was critical of China’s cultural revolution, Xiang fled China after continued persecution. He and his wife remained with City of Asylum until 2006.

Other writers soon followed. Novelist Horacio Castellanos Moya fled El Salvador and arrived in Pittsburgh in 2007, followed by essayist Khet Mar and her family, who left Burma in 2009.

Baisley said that each instance of a writer coming to City of Asylum Pittsburgh is unique. Sometimes, the writers reach out to City of Asylum Pittsburgh and apply for the organization’s residency programs. Other times, she said, Postsecondary Education Network International or the International Cities of Refuge Network recommends writers to the program.

The process of then coming to City of Asylum Pittsburgh starts with the program helping writers to obtain the appropriate visas and secure transportation. Next, the organization arranges for the writer — and, if accompanying them, their family — to live in one of City of Asylum Pittsburgh’s on-location homes.

The two writers currently taking refuge with City of Asylum Pittsburgh are Centeno, and Yaghoub Yadali.

Centeno has been working on a trilogy and a separate novel since his arrival in 2011. His work “El Complot” is currently being translated into English.

“This is my work,” said Centeno of writing. “This is the thing that I love to do.” 

“El Complot” is a fictional dystopian story in which the political climate of Venezuela drives some citizens to try to assassinate a fictional president. Upon its publication in 2002, then-President Hugo Chavez’s party interpreted Centeno’s work as a call to action that encouraged citizens to follow suit and attempt political assassinations.

“In this novel, I talk a lot about the extreme left wing of my country,” he said, “and some people assume that I am talking about them.”

Centeno maintained that his novel was a work of fiction, and said that he never mentioned Chavez’s name in the story. 

Yadali, the other exiled writer currently involved with City of Asylum Pittsburgh, is an Iranian fiction writer and television director. He was accused of insulting one of his country’s minority groups because of a love affair between the lead character of his novel “The Rituals of Restlessness” and a woman from said group. Yadali explained that although Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which must approve authors’ works before publication, gave him permission to publish his novel, he was sentenced by a court to one year in prison.

Although mounting public and international pressure caused him to be released on bail, he ultimately lost his job and left the country in 2012. Before coming to City of Asylum Pittsburgh, he participated in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, and later became a visiting writer at Harvard University. This year, he came to City of Asylum Pittsburgh, and is currently writing at Chatham University with a J-1 visa, which allows for non-immigrants to reside in the United States for the purpose of cultural exchange.

“Here, there is a quiet and calm space to work without any pressure and problem,” said Yadali, who is currently revising a novel he previously wrote in Iran, as well as working on a new novel that he began while at Harvard University.

City of Asylum Pittsburgh’s goals

Baisley said that City of Asylum Pittsburgh believes it’s up to the community as a whole to ensure that the right to express one’s beliefs is maintained.

“The protection of that right is the responsibility of the community at large,” she said. “Art, literature, free speech, community: all part of the equation.” 

Yadali agrees that artists should be able to express themselves freely, saying that any limitation put on free expression “would draw back engendering creativity, and also thinking and writing.”

He pointed to censorship as an example of one kind of limitation, comparing it to the constant ticking of a clock inside a writer’s head. The writer, Yadali said, must actively work to reject the tick-tock, so as to be able to write their actual and genuine thoughts.

Yadali thinks that without having come to Pittsburgh, he wouldn’t be able to write in such a way.

“If I hadn’t come to Pittsburgh, I wouldn’t have a space to respire. I wouldn’t work on whatever I want. If I hadn’t come here, I would not be able to freely speak my mind,” he said. “Here, I write whatever I think, without any limitation and pressure.”

Although there are only six individuals currently on the City of Asylum Pittsburgh staff led by founders Reese and Samuels, Baisley said that the program is more concerned with providing substantive aid to writers for as long as they so need it, rather than just temporary help.

“Rather than focusing on emergency relief and providing a temporary way-station for an exiled writer, City of Asylum Pittsburgh is committed to helping endangered writers build a new home and a stable life, as writers — it is very important that they continue to write, that they are not silenced either by threat of danger or the circumstance of exile — in a community,” she said.