Ogaga Ifowodo | Status: Released | Nigeria
Poet Ogaga Ifowodo was arrested around November 6, 1997 on his way home from the Commonwealth Summit in Edinburgh, where he and other activists appealed for stronger sanctions against… More
Nguyen Chi Thien | Status: Deceased | Vietnam
Vietnamese poet Nguyen Chi Thien spent almost 27 years in prison for his "politically irreverent poems" between 1960 and 1991. In 1989 he received the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to… More
Eşber Yağmurdereli | Status: Released | Turkey
Blind playwright, poet, short story author, screenwriter, and lawyer, Eşber Yağmurdereli has been in and out of prison since 1978 and was the 1999 recipient of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith… More
Pramoedya Ananta Toer | Status: Deceased | Indonesia
Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925–2006) was the author of novels that chronicled much of that Southeast Asian country's turbulent history. Passing away in 2006, he leaves behind a legacy of… More
Flora Brovina | Status: Released | Kosovo
Born in 1949, Flora Brovina is a Kosovar-Albanian pediatrician, poet, and women’s rights activist. She was arrested on 20 April 1999, during the Kosovo War, and held in captivity in Serbia while NATO… More
Ayşe Nur Zarakolu | Status: Deceased | Turkey
Founder of Turkey’s Freedom to Publish Committee, Ayşe Nur Zarakolu was a political essayist, the director of Belge Publishing House, and the only woman publishing director in Turkey at… More
Jack Mapanje | Status: Released | Malawi
Jack Mapanje is a poet and storyteller of exile narratives and political power structures. He was detained without charge or trial for over three years until his release in… More
Shahla Lahiji | Status: Released | Iran
The first woman to run a publishing house in Iran, Shahla Lahiji is one of 19 Iranian writers and intellectuals prosecuted in Tehran for participating in an academic and… More
Nizametdin Akhmetov | Status: Released | Russia
Nizametdin Akhmetov, a Bashkir poet, was sent to a labor camp at age 18. After 20 years of imprisonment in labor camps and psychiatric hospitals, Akhmetov was released on… More
Matsemela Manaka | Status: Deceased | South Africa
Matsemela Manaka was a writer, director, actor, poet and cultural theorist. His career in playwriting was spurred much in part by the Soweto uprising in 1976. Manaka received the… More
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
