Writers need PEN more than ever
almost 5 years in The guardian
A century after the international association of writers was founded, authors are under unprecedented threat
In 1921, the writer and activist Catherine Amy Dawson Scott founded PEN in London, to bring writers together and provide a space in which they might share ideas, and discuss them. “It occurred to me that out of social intercourse comes understanding,” she wrote, “and that if the great writers of the world met in friendship and exchanged ideas, a nascent kindliness would deepen.”
PEN centres have since been created around the world, and the membership has supported thousands of writers who have been imprisoned, persecuted, harassed, simply for the act of putting words on a page. Writer-to-writer solidarity – ranging from prison visits to protests, lobbying to letter writing – is at the heart of what PEN is and what it does. Continue reading...
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