(Update: A recording of the event is now a PEN podcast.) But I was not one of them (my own fault for being late!); nor was a woman from an independent TV station in China, some folks from the AP, or some sad Russians, because the event was so packed fire laws prevented PEN from being able to let more people in. What a shame! Although, the world being what it is, there’s a lot to be said for things like fire laws. Here’s a report on the evening from Radio Free Europe. From that piece:

David Remnick, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and editor of the “The New Yorker” magazine, noted that her celebrated reputation in the West was a distinct contrast from her reputation at home in Russia.
 
“It was one of the great ironies, not unexpected under the circumstances, that she would receive all her awards that I can think of in the West, particularly in the United States,” he said. “So, she had this bifurcated life of coming to the Waldorf-Astoria, whatever hotel ballroom in New York, or Paris, or London, to receive accolades for her bravery, for her prose, and her passion. And then she would return home to be vilified by her government.”