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PEN Honors Ilham Tohti with PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award
PEN American Center announced today that it will confer the 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award upon imprisoned Uyghur economist and writer Ilham Tohti. PEN hopes that… More
#WithFlowers: Free Expression for China
Despite promises to improve its human rights record, the climate for freedom of expression in China has steadily declined. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former Independent Chinese PEN Center President… More
A Freedom to Write Retrospective: Nay Phone Latt
Each week leading up to the PEN Literary Gala and the conferrence of the 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on May 5, PEN will feature the story… More
The Silent Woman
I stuck the knifepoint into one of the spaces between my black-gloved fingers. Then into the space between the fingers next to it . . . Several men tensely… More
The Ravens
This is our patch. We have no other. This soil, observed by the sun and the ravens. This plot beneath a sky criss-crossed by jet planes. More
On the Precipice: Burmese Literature Post-Censorship
How does a country's literature recover after years of mass censorship? James Byrne, poet and founder of the poetry journal The Wolf, has followed the developments in Burma for… More
In Nigeria, the War on Books is Being Fought on Two Fronts
PEN Nigeria warns the UN about encroachments on free expression and digital freedom, as the militant Islam group Boko Haram continued its war against books and the federal finance… More
The Steady Running of the Hour
A dugout can collapse under shelling and bury you alive, or drown you as it slowly fills with water. The two sometimes come in tandem, so that it is… More
The Temporary Gentleman
So I was standing there, flush with my winnings, not thinking of much, as always somewhat intoxicated by being at sea, somewhat in love with an unknown coastline, and… More
Writers and Activists Dinh Dang Dinh and Nguyen Huu Cau Released Under an Amnesty, Nguyen Van Ly Remains Imprisoned
PEN welcomes the release of blogger Dinh Dang Dinh and writer and activist Nguyen Huu Cau on March 21, 2014, under an amnesty, and reiterates its call for the… More