Page 12 - Write Award News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

They are recognized for going above and beyond in 2021

The difficult plight of writers living under authoritarian rule has been well-documented over decades, with some enduring impossibly harsh treatment for their truth-telling and resistance to repression. Frequent targets to be silenced through arrest, torture, prison and even death, writers, says Karin Deutsch Karlekar of Pen America, “are paying a very heavy price for free expression, which of course is not a crime.”

PEN America will honor Jack Petocz, the high school junior who fought against book bans and organized students across Florida to protest HB 1557 (the Parental Rights in Education, or “Don’t Say Gay,” bill) with the PEN/Benenson Freedom of Expression Courage Award at the 2022 PEN America Literary Gala. Devoted to exceptional acts of courage in the exercise of freedom of expression, the award this year is presented to the youth activist whose unflinching stance against censorship and silencing reflects his generation’s refusal of the regressive legislation burdening education throughout ...

The US$10 million gift of the Barbey family has established PEN's new Freedom to Write Center, which Liesl Gerntholtz will helm.

NEW YORK (AP) — A Ukrainian journalist imprisoned in Crimea will be honored next month at the PEN America gala. Vladyslav Yesypenko, arrested last year and sentenced recently to six