Images and video from tonight’s Gala, courtesy of Getty Images, are available for use: Arrivals Inside Video
(NEW YORK)— PEN America, the free expression organization, gathered with 650 supporters for its annual Literary Gala on Thursday night to celebrate the freedom to write and honor the indelible songwriting of icon Paul Simon.
At the high profile evening on the New York literary and social calendar, Simon received the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award for his bountiful and unparalleled songs and lyrics over a half century.
Simon came to the stage, acoustic guitar in hand, and played and sang “American Tune,” which he wrote in 1972 after the election of Richard Nixon and with the Kent State shootings of student protesters fresh in his mind. “The mood today is uncomfortably similar to that time,” he said. The crowd was moved by his quiet almost transcendent song.
Other honorees included Dow Jones CEO and Publisher of The Wall Street Journal Almar Latour, who has been at the forefront of efforts for more than a year to secure the release of Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from a Russian prison; mother-daughter Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who successfully sued to vindicate their reputations after being vilified and falsely accused of election-related malfeasance in 2020, and Vietnamese writer Pham Doan Trang, imprisoned for her ideas about democracy and critiques of state repression.
PEN America Trustee Roxanne Donovan, a member of the gala committee, said: “We chose tonight to persist. We draw strength from the 650 people who stand not only with PEN America here but with those we defend and honor for their extraordinary courage against threats and oppression intended to keep them silent. Tonight’s heroes of free expression bring us together and energize our community for the work ahead.”
PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel rallied supporters behind PEN America’s core principles, “defense of free expression, respect for varied viewpoints, dialogue across difference and a commitment to reckon with complexity in search of truth.” Her speech brought to the audience to its feet. Read her full remarks.
Noting that PEN was conceived in the ashes of World War 1, Nossel said: “PEN understood conflict then not as a reason why writers could not unite, but as a reason why they must. “
Opening the program, author and current PEN America President Jennifer Finney Boylan also acknowledged the sharp division across the country, on college campuses and at PEN America itself. Summoning the hope for healing she quoted lyrics from “one of the nation’s foremost poets,” Paul Simon, in his 2007 song “The Cool, Cool River:” I believe in the future. We shall suffer no more. Maybe not in my lifetime. But in yours, I feel sure.
Boylan championed the essence of PEN America’ mission, “to enable authors to continue to change the world, and to free writers who find themselves behind bars because of the stories that they have told.”
Bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell presented the literary award to Simon saying the songwriter “has provided the soundtrack of my life and I think that is true for millions of us around the world.”
Gladwell added that Simon was a cross between “a genius and the guy from Queens in the bleachers yelling ‘He was out!.’ ”
Simon said: “We’ve learned that the cause we are supporting tonight — PEN’s valid commitment to protect writers everywhere from censorship, coercion and imprisonment — is more urgently needed than ever. What can we do in the face of these seemingly mountainous problems? The worst case scenario would have us staring into a cultural and political abyss. That’s not going to happen,” he added, quoting lines from the Nobel laureate poet Wisława Szymborska: “an abyss, but a little bridge, a little bridge, but shaky, shaky, but the only, there’s no other.”
“We will have to build that bridge,” said Simon. “There is no other choice for us. We have the resources to make the future a better place. Art is a weapon of peace. When we meet again in 50 years, there will be some other American tune that describes a more optimistic time in our country. That will be your legacy.”
The literary award honors an exceptional voice who enhances understanding of the human condition through original and powerful writing. Simon joined an illustrious group of past literary honorees including President Barack Obama and Ava DuVernay and PEN/Audible Literary Service Award recipients Margaret Atwood, Bob Woodward, Stephen King, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Patti Smith, the late Toni Morrison and Stephen Sondheim, and last year, Saturday Night Live creator, writer and executive producer Lorne Michaels.
With late night talk show host Seth Meyers as master of ceremonies, this was the 15th year that PEN America hosted the gathering of writers, journalists, publishers, editors, humanitarians, and cultural influencers under the 94-foot blue whale at Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural History. The evening honors achievement in fields from journalism, literature and entertainment to publishing, business and culture. Proceeds benefit PEN America’s literary and arts programming and advocacy for global free expression and the freedoms to speak, read and write.
As in past years, writers hosted guest tables, this year including notables such as Maria Konnikova, Candace Bushnell, Jay McInerney, Andrew Solomon, Masih Alinejad, James Traub, Kati Marton, Amanda Foreman, among many others.
In his opening monologue, Meyers talked about PEN America’s work to expose book bans, which have been rising nationwide and said: “We’ve learned that the cause we are supporting tonight — PEN’s valid commitment to protect writers everywhere from censorship, coercion and imprisonment — is more urgently needed than ever.”
Veteran NBC foreign affairs journalist and anchor Andrea Mitchell presented the Business Visionary award to Latour for his dedication to a free press and unyielding efforts to free Gershkovich. Latour gave moving remarks about the jailing of the Journal report by the Putin regime—“an absolute outrage,” he said—and spoke about the perils of journalism worldwide: 320 journalists detained last year; 100 reporters killed covering the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, “informing the world at great personal risk.”
Latour said: “Russia may be an ocean and a continent away; but the distance between authoritarianism and a free society is measured by the strength of free speech.”
Pham Doan Trang, a writer and activist who epitomizes the relentless struggle for free expression and the freedom to write in Vietnam, was honored with the 2024 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award.
PEN America trustee Dinaw Mengestu, the Ethiopian-American novelist and writer, presented the award, which is given each year to a writer imprisoned for their writing and recognizes courage and sacrifice in the face of oppression. Known in Vietnam for her blog and books about civil liberties, Trang was sentenced in 2021 to nine years in prison on spurious “propaganda” charges related to her writings.
Trang’s friend, lawyer Quynh-Vi Tran, traveled from Taiwan to accept the award on her behalf. She said Trang was “the symbol of bravery and perseverance, inspiring countless young people to envision and strive for a Vietnam where freedom and human rights are upheld.”
“Despite having the option to remain abroad, Phạm Đoan Trang chose to return to Vietnam, fully aware of the risks,” said Tran, a journalist who is executive director of the NGO, Legal Initiatives for Vietnam. “She chose to go back to Vietnam, knowing very well about the dangers that awaited her there. She knew, but she never hesitated to go back. Because she wanted to make Vietnam better.”
The actor, filmmaker and entrepreneur Tyler Perry presented the PEN/Benenson Courage Award to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, election workers from Georgia, whose lives were upended in 2020 by relentless threats ignited by President Trump and his allies, who falsely accused the women of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase.
Perry described them as “two salt of the earth women. They were targeted and vilified. These women stood up for themselves. And for them to get an award for courage is amazing.”
The award honors remarkable willingness to face adversity, risk, and personal sacrifice to defend the fundamental human right to free expression.
Freeman said: “Thank you for caring about what matters, especially right now. The freedom to speak truth. The freedom to stand up for what is right. I had no idea what awaited when my daughter Shaye and I signed up for a sacred civic duty: counting votes. Who could know what lay ahead? Who could imagine being singled out with threats by the then president of the United States, the person who is supposed to lead us all together?”
Moss said: “I took enormous pride in making sure everybody’s vote was counted. It pains me that so many still don’t seem to understand how our elections work, or that the 2020 election was not ‘stolen.’ But here tonight, with all of you, I’m filled with hope again. When a plot to overthrow an election plows through your family, the wreckage is everywhere and the pain is inescapable. It’s inspiring to know that you all are out there. Just about everyone working on behalf of our democracy seems to be absorbing hate from those who can’t abide the will of the voters. But they will not win. Their hate is no match for courage.”
Boylan, in her remarks, referred to former PEN America president Salman Rushdie’s new memoir KNIFE, a chronicle of the attack he suffered on Aug. 12, 2022 and his months of recovery. She said: “In the last year, freedom of expression, and freedom of speech, and literature itself, has been under attack from all sides, because authoritarians know that literature is a knife, just as Salman describes it—but it’s not the kind of weapon that hurts; it’s the kind of weapon that heals, opens hearts, changes minds, wakes people up from their sleep.”
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Visit pen.org
Contacts: PEN America: Suzanne Trimel, [email protected], 201-247-5057
SLATE PR – Shawn Purdy, [email protected]