This is The Writer's Voice, New Fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Joseph O'Neill read his story,

Pardon Edward Snowden, from the December 12th, 2016 issue of the magazine.

O'Neill has published four novels, including Netherland,

which won the Penn Falkner Award for Fiction in 2009,

and The Dog, which came out in 2014.

Now here's Joseph O'Neill.

Music Pardon Edward Snowden.

The poet Mark McCain received an email which had been sent to numerous American poets,

inviting him to sign a politician, requesting that President Barack H. Obama pardon Edward Snowden.

The request took the form of a poem written by Meryl Jensen, who Mark knew to be 28 years old,

a full nine years his junior. The poem petition rhymed Snowden with pardon, and pardon with Rosegarden, and Rosegarden with Nation, and Rose Garden with Nation.

And Nation with Eden.

It rhymed, or, as Mark preferred to put it, it echoed.

Putin and Putin.

And Clinton and no disputing.

Russia echoed USA and USA Thoreau and Thoreau hero.

Mark forwarded the email to the poet E.W. West.

He wrote,

Am I crazy to find this enraging?' Within seconds Liz wrote back,

No.

...