Named for the late acclaimed author Madeleine L’Engle and her 10-year written friendship with scholar, writer and former Black Party leader Ahmad Rahman, the PEN America/L’Engle Rahman Prize for Mentorship honors four mentor/mentee pairs in PEN America’s longstanding prison writing mentorship program, which links established writers with those currently incarcerated.

The prize was generously endowed by L’Engle’s family and memorializes L’Engle’s participation as one of the program’s very first mentors, along with Rahman’s extraordinary journey from serving 21 years in prison—framed in an FBI sting of the Panthers—to celebrated and beloved assistant professor of African and African-American History at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. The pair began writing in the early 1970s, establishing a rigorous working rapport that informed both of their works.

Read this poignant essay to learn more about the history of this incredible partnership »

Watch a captivating performance of L’Engle and Rahman’s letters, edited and staged by L’Engle’s granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis and actor Eric Berryman:

Meet the Honorees

About the PEN America Prison Writing Mentorship Program

Consisting of more than 300 mentors working with some 300 imprisoned writers, the PEN America Prison Writing Mentorship Program is the country’s leading writerly connection between writers inside and outside the walls of U.S. prisons. Mentors provide constructive criticism, notes on craft, and guidance in and beyond the fundamentals of writing, grammar, and mechanics to incarcerated people across the country.