Today we released our annual Freedom to Write Index, revealing that in 2023, a record 339 writers from 33 countries were unjustly imprisoned, an increase of more than 20% over the previous year. The rise is partly attributable to the adverse impacts of war and conflict on freedom of expression, as the crackdown on dissent in both Israel and Russia placed both countries in the top 10 for the first time. China, already the world’s top jailer of writers, registered a significant increase, exceeding 100 writers behind bars for the first time. The crackdown on the creative community continued in Iran, with women who wrote or advocated against the compulsory hijab particularly at risk.
Last week we were saddened to announce the cancellation of our 2024 Literary Awards and World Voices Festival. The decision to cancel was not taken lightly, particularly given the very mission of PEN America to elevate writers and foster dialogue across differences. We are committed to hosting a Town Hall in the near future to wrestle with the issues gripping the literary community and our own organization, and will share details on that soon.
We continue to be deeply alarmed by the decision of campus administrators across the country to deploy the police to detain, arrest, and remove peaceful student protesters. The use of excessive force against students and faculty on multiple occasions is shocking and unacceptable.
This week’s Member Spotlight features The Girls of Jerusalem and Other Stories by PEN America Member Marsha Lee Berkman. From the opening vignette in which a photograph is a silent witness to history to the powerful coda "Miracles," a novella set against the vibrant panorama of the Yiddish theater in America, the fifteen memorable narratives in The Girls of Jerusalem and Other Stories span continents and eras as they chronicle love and loss, piety and heresy, mysticism and rationality to reinterpret ancient tropes of exile, dislocation, and profound change, revealing a new understanding of Jewish history and memory.
We join the literary community in mourning our longtime friend and former PEN America Vice President Paul Auster. “In addition to shaping the worldviews of generations of Americans through his bracing and beloved novels, Paul Auster was a writer’s writer, consistently standing in solidarity with authors in China, Iran, Russia and around the world who were persecuted for what he was able to do freely: exercise his imagination and tell stories,” said CEO Suzanne Nossel.
For our latest PEN Ten, translator Luke Leafgren and publisher Judith Gurewich spoke with Prison and Justice Writing Director Sonya Soni about Nasser Abu Srour’s passionate, haunting autobiography, The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on the Meaning of Hope and Freedom. Abu Srour, who writes from an Israeli prison cell where he is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole, provides a historical and personal glimpse into the struggle and resistance of the Palestinian people.
CEO Suzanne Nossel spoke to Ali Velshi about what the freedom to read, write, and speak looks like in today’s America. (MSNBC)
Viktorya Vilk and Jeje Mohamed, in collaboration with Columbia University scholar Susan McGregor, published an op-ed about how to support press freedom, citing the findings of our recent report, The Power of Peer Support. (Newsweek)
Dallas/Fort Worth chapter leader Will Evans was featured in an article about putting Dallas on the literary map. (The New York Times)
Secret meetings, social chatter: How Columbia students sparked a nationwide revolt (The Washington Post)
The Ghost of the 1968 Antiwar Movement Has Returned (The New York Times)
Students Increasingly Uncomfortable Sharing Political Opinions (Inside Higher Ed)
“I think about it: Why am I so attracted to (New York), even though part of me hates it because it’s so rough and so depressing, often? I think it’s because the whole world is here. And I think it’s maybe the only place that I know of in which so many people from so many parts of the world coexist, not always in terms of friendship or love, but mutual tolerance. … I’ve always argued in a way that in spite of the fact that most of America looks on us with fear and contempt, that we are the heartland. We really represent what the United States of America is all about.”
- Paul Auster, at the 2018 World Voices Festival
TRENDING @ PENAMERICA
Writers at Risk: By the Numbers
See the main takeaways of our Freedom to Writer Index in these shareable graphics.
PEN America- New York:
120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271 PEN America- Washington, DC:
1100 13th Street, NW, Washington, DC xxxxxx PEN America- Los Angeles:
1370 N. Saint Andrews Place, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.
