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Hello and welcome to a special edition of World Book Cafe with me Ritoulashah.

Usually this programme travels the world, catching up with writers in their home cities.

Today there's no traveling except in our minds.

Instead, we're going to explore an issue fundamental to all writing, freedom of expression. This year marks the 100th anniversary of English

pen, an organisation created to protect freedom of expression wherever it's under attack, and

a campaign to protect writers who face persecution around the world.

I'm joined by three authors to discuss the threats to their freedom to write and also their

freedom to read and be read. We'll explore what it is that keeps them

writing even in dark moments. With me in the studio, a Hannah Comar, a poet and translator from

Belarus and Mirza Wahid who was born in the disputed territory of

Kashmir and whose first two novels the collaborator in the Book of Gold Leaves were

set there. On the line from Berlin is the Zimbabwean writer,

Sitzi Dangare Embwa, author of Nervous Conditions and this mournable body

who's been awarded this year's pen pinter prize.

Welcome to you all. Can I start by asking each of you in turn, what does freedom of

expression mean to you? Citi. Freedom of expression means the freedom to express one's opinions, beliefs and

desires in a peaceful manner. Hannah, when you think about freedom of expression, what

does it mean?

It means speaking your truth, you know, what you believe in and your thoughts without being punished for it.

Mirza, what does it mean to you?

It's the freedom to think, speak and write about all the things that provoke or inspire fair,

...