92NY has put its 2023-2024 literary series “on pause” amid staff resignations and author withdrawals. Unterberg Poetry Center director Sarah Chihaya and senior program coordinator Sophie Herron have both resigned following a controversy involving the author Viet Thanh Nguyen. Authors and critics including Christina Sharpe, Saidiya Hartman, Dionne Brand, Paisley Rekdal, and Andrea Long Chu had pulled out of their scheduled events. The controversy started when the organization cancelled (or at least postponed) a poetry center event featuring Nguyen on Friday, after Nguyen signed an open letter in London Review of Books criticizing Israel. The event was convened downtown at […]
