“Imagine a discussion about the cultural divide between the United States and Europe and not a word about Michael Jackson, 50 Cent, Tom Cruise or Paris Hilton.

Instead, prominent European and American writers mocked the Bush administration, lamented the rise of religious fundamentalism in the United States and squabbled about Israel at a forum Thursday night sponsored by PEN American Center and the Institute for the Humanities at New York University.

They also discussed more writerly concerns: why more translations of foreign-language books are not published in the United States, for instance, and why Americans do not seem to take their writers as seriously as the Europeans do theirs.” —New York Times