 Festival-goers participated in a literary safari, trolling through the halls of Westbeth, a West Village artists community, where they experienced readings by a range of authors, including Elias Khoury, Giannina Braschi and Peter Schneider.A Processional Arts Workshop opened the festival with a procession of giant bibliomorphic puppets, illuminated objects, and projections on the High Line at sundown.Organized by festival curatorial chair Rob Spillman, the PEN World Voices Festival 2017 focused on vital issues of the political period, with a special focus on the restive relationship between gender and power.