Dear Friends,
I'm writing this just after leaving Bled and the annual Writers for Peace Committee meeting. This was my first time in Bled, and I must tell all of you who have never been that it is an amazing gathering of PEN members and other writers. Eugene Schoulgin was also there, as were two other members of the board, Markéta Hejkalová and Kristin Schnider, as well as Josep Maria Terricabras, who of course is chair of the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee.
We had some particularly interesting meetings, discussing the possibilities of literary gatherings in the future aimed at bringing writers together from across cultural divides. The whole meeting in Bled was organised thanks to Slovenian PEN, who are an engaged and active Centre.
Whilst there, I had a long meeting with the Slovenian President and investigated ways Slovenia could be helpful on the international front, supporting freedom of expression. I just came from Paris, where I had a good meeting with French PEN and with Abdou Diouf, the Secretary General of La Francophonie. Again, I was talking to him about possible involvement of La Francophonie in International PEN issues. On my way to Paris and Bled I stopped in to London to spend half a day with the International PEN staff.
Earlier in the year, I'd spent a week in London, along with Eugene and our Treasurer, Eric Lax, in order to meet all the members of the International PEN staff and talk with them about what they are doing. We also had a meeting with English PEN, at the invitation of their President, Lisa Appignanesi, which was useful and enjoyable.
As you've all heard by now, Caroline McCormick is leaving us after doing wonderful things for International PEN. Eugene and I are busy talking about the process of replacing her.
Finally, the Fundraising Committee under Haroon Siddiqui is busy working on a new project to raise funds from some of the world's leading writers. I'll come back to you to get your help on this in the near future, but I think it's a great way of bringing money into International PEN in the hope of stabilising its finances over the longer term.
John Ralston Saul, International President
Dear Friends,
These first three months of 2010 has mainly been dedicated to preparations and administrative work; preparations for Free the Word! events and for the Writers in Prison Committee 50th anniversary celebrations, and fundraising activities to continue our work.
It is with great expectation that I look forward to the third Free the Word! festival in London, and after that the Free the Word! event in Istanbul. The writers taking part in the London festival are as interesting as ever, and I have every faith that PEN Turkey will also make their event a great success.
Marian Botsford Fraser, the Chair of the Writers in Prison Committee, and Sara Whyatt, the Writers in Prison Committee Programme Director, are leading our WiPC team together with a number of PEN Centres around the world to make 2010 a memorable year of PEN's work defending freedom of expression over the last 50 years. The 50 writers who will be the focus of the anniversary campaign, a writer for every year the WIPC has existed, whom we have been able to help, and in some cases even save, is unexpectedly impressive - even to me who has been involved in this work for many years.
Eugene Schoulgin, International Secretary
Dear Friends,
I want to let you know that after five years I have resigned as Director of International PEN.
I am extremely proud of our achievements as a team over the last five years: In particular, the establishment of Free the Word!, the regional programmes, which are now operating in half the PEN Centres worldwide, as well as projects such as the re-brand of the organisation. I have also been privileged to meet many wonderful PEN members and to travel to a number of PEN Centres. Thank you all for your friendship and kindness.
However, I feel that I have now achieved what I can and that it is an appropriate moment for another individual to take over the executive leadership of the organisation. I will be taking up the position of Advisor to the National Theatre in London on their NT: Futures redevelopment, which will see the realisation of a number of initiatives to open up the building, which I was part of the development group for when I last worked there. I am also the Literature Director of Beyond Borders and I will, in this capacity, be staging a residency followed by a programme of events for international authors, as part of the years' Edinburgh International Book Festival. This project is in partnership with Scottish PEN and will I hope engage other PEN Centres in the future.
It has been a pleasure working with you and I am sending you my best wishes for the future.
Yours,
Caroline McCormick, Executive Director
FREE THE WORD! LONDON 2010
Back for a third year, International PEN's Free the Word! festival of world literature is set to take London on a global journey of words through conversations with the great writers you know and the great writers you don't.
Extending our literary celebrations to five days to bring you over 40 writers from 25 countries, we're still offering our usual reader's box of delights. Come and interrogate the graphic nature of crime writing, discuss the fact of fiction, hear the stories of international best-selling writers and listen to the voices of up-and-coming talents.
We are delighted to welcome Nobel prize-winning poet Derek Walcott, Cuban Noir novelist Leonardo Padura, graphic novelists from Israel, India and Denmark, poetry from Uyghur China, Zapotec Mexico and Somalia, a rare appearance by US author Richard Ford in conversation with Blake Morrison, as well as events featuring outspoken Egyptian novelist Nawal El Saadawi. We will also be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee in some special events that mark their work defending freedom of expression since 1960.
Click here for more information about Free the Word! events and to book tickets.
BECAUSE WRITERS SPEAK THEIR MINDS
THE WRITERS IN PRISON COMMITTEE 50TH ANNIVERSARY CAMPAIGN
Because Writers Speak Their Minds: 50 years of defending freedom of expression was launched in February and during this year PEN Centres will be encouraged to celebrate the work of the WiPC and commemorate the many thousands of writers who have suffered persecution for their writings during the past half century. At the core of the campaign are 50 writers, each one representing every year since 1960, and all of whom had been subject to the WiPC's advocacy. Their stories are told on the website, with photos and excerpts of their writings, and links to other sources. As the year goes by, Centres will be encouraged to make their own contribution to the site, with comments, reminiscences, updates and news of activities. Contact the WiPC if you would like to be on our email list, and visit our website: Because Writers Speak Their Minds
REGIONAL PROGRAMMES
With the Africa Regional Programme now entering its fourth year it's a good time to pause and take stock of what has been achieved since the launch of the Programme in 2007.
The Regional Programme has enabled 12 PEN Centres in Africa to undertake an ongoing series of projects, public events, campaigns and Centre exchanges. These have ranged from reading and writing projects in schools in Ghana, to human rights awareness events in Kenya, to government lobbying on a national scale in Malawi. In 2009 alone approximately 18,900 children between the ages of 8 and 19 were directly involved in an education project run by a PEN Centre in Africa. Whether they attended a creative writing workshop, took part in a writing competition, became a member of a PEN school club, or simply borrowed a book from their school's newly established library, these students were invited - in many cases for the first time in their lives - to participate in the world of reading, writing and ideas.
Students are not the only ones benefiting from the work: in the past year Uganda PEN has provided intensive teacher training to over 50 teachers; Zambia PEN has doubled the number of users of three community libraries in Lusaka; and Guinea PEN has - through the establishment of capsule libraries in 40 rural schools - provided free access to necessary textbooks to over 10,000 families. Thousands of people have listened to students in Sierra Leone's PEN clubs read their stories and poems live on radio, and many more watched the TV coverage of Somali-Speaking PEN's workshops and prize-giving events. The exposure that Centres have received through their projects, events and campaigns has led to an increase in membership of Centres across the Programme, and allowed for Centres to establish further collaborations with partner organisations.
For more information about the work being carried out by individual PEN Centres, please visit the International Programmes section of our website. Meanwhile the International Programmes team continues to work with Centres in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia and the Pacific.
COMMITTEE NEWS
Writers in Prison Committee
It has been a busy few weeks at the Writers in Prison Committee. The team has been working very hard to get the first stage of its 50th Anniversary Campaign - Because Writers Speak Their Minds - onto the International PEN website, completing the six-monthly caselist, closing actions for the Americas campaign, joint actions with other organisations on Iran and documents for 8 March International Women's Day.
WiPC Caselist July-December 2009: the second six monthly caselist for 2009, covering the period July-December, is now available. This issue also includes statistics for the whole of 2009: the WiPC monitored 900 cases, among them 35 murders, 267 detentions and numerous trials, death threats, attacks and other harassment. 52 writers and journalists who had been serving long prison terms were freed in the same period.
Actions on Cuba and Mexico: the year long campaign on Freedom of Expression in the Americas will close in early 2010. In January a number of actions were taken on Mexico based around last year's promises by the Mexican authorities to the United Nations towards improvements in protection of freedom of expression, pointing to the continued high levels of unsolved murders. Articles on concerns in Mexico appeared in the international media. In February, Centres were invited to take action on Cuba, two years after it had signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The continued existence of numerous writers and journalists in prison despite the signing of this UN treaty is at the core of the appeals from PEN. For more go to: Freedom to Write in the Americas
Iran - Our Society Will be a Free Society: the increasingly critical situation for free expression in Iran has been of huge concern to PEN members and in March, PEN joined forces with twelve other free expression organisers in a joint campaign and petition drive called Our Society Will be A Free Society - a reference to a pledge made by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on the eve of the 1979 revolution. PEN also monitored the Iranian government's presentation on its adherence to the UN in Geneva in early March. Centres approached their own governments attending this session to ensure that free expression featured highly in the debates. To sign the petition, and for more information about the campaign, visit the campaign website www.oursocietywillbeafreesociety.org or access our page on Facebook.
International Women's Day - 8 March 2010: this year the WiPC marked International Women's Day by highlighting and reflecting on the 14 women who are among the 50 emblematic cases featured in the WiPC's Because Writers Speak Their Minds anniversary actions. We also took the opportunity to renew actions on three of them who still face problems: Lydia Cacho of Mexico, Sihem Bensedrine of Tunisia, and Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, as well as to raise three current cases - in Vietnam, Russia and Iran. WiPC Women's Day Action 2010
Women Writers Committee
We are now on Facebook! Women from PEN Centres can sign up to facebook.com/InternationalPenWomenWritersCommittee. This will be a way to share and exchange news, views and ideas on a regular basis and we hope that this is a step that will encourage more PEN Centres to form Women's Committees and inform us of their activities via this network. We responded to a call for solidarity with a group of Iranian feminists to mark International Women's Day on 8 March by signing their petition on www.irangenderequality.com. Women such as Nawal el Saadawi, Julia Christeva and many women's organisations have signed it and it was supported by PEN Centres including Swedish PEN, who informed us of the campaign. Voice Virus, the regional women's conference in India has been postponed to spring 2011.
Writers for Peace Committee
The Peace Committee met last week in Bled in Slovenia for their 42nd conference organised jointly by Slovene PEN and the Writers for Peace Committee of International PEN. The themes of the conference round table events were ‘Globalisation: an opportunity for all or a new colonisation for many' and ‘Literature and Globalisatiton' while the theme of the Peace Committee round table was ‘Peace between diurnal and nocturnal dreams'. During the conference, participants enjoyed several literary events including an evening of Slovene poetry and music and an evening dedicated to Ismaïl Kadare.
Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee
The Committee continue to look at supporting more literature in translation and campaign for linguistic rights as a fundamental human right. The next meeting of the Committee is to take place in Barcelona from June 17 to 18. The theme of the meeting will be ‘Freedom of expression: meaning and limits'. All PEN Centres will be informed of the details of the meeting very soon.
PEN CENTRE NEWS
The Iberian American Foundation: the updated version of the Iberian American Foundation's website is now available. It contains the latest news on activities and the Freedom to Write in the Americas campaign, as well as its declaration signed by prominent writers from the region. The website was generously designed and is administered by Galician PEN under the leadership of the Centre's President, Luis González Tosar and its Secretary General (Director de la Oficina Técnica), Xabier Castro. Galician PEN is one of the Foundation's most active members. To visit the new website click here
Mexican PEN: Mexican PEN has created three new prizes in the categories of Excellence in literature, journalism, and publishing. Two prizes will be given in each category. With these prizes the Centre hopes to bring greater awareness to Mexico and increase the awareness with the problems with the killing of journalists. The ceremony will be held at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City on April 18th. The winners of the prizes will be announced in the June newsletter.
South African PEN: The PEN/Studzinski literary award is now open for entries. Writers from SADC countries are invited to submit original, previously unpublished, English-language short stories. Three prize winners will be selected by Nobel laureate J M Coetzee and the best entries will be selected by an editorial board for inclusion in a book to be published next year, entitled ‘African Pens 2011'. The deadline for submissions is 30th June 2010. Entrants are advised to read the detailed rules and conditions for submission, as available at www.sapen.co.za, or e-mail SA PEN at rudebs@icon.co.za to request a copy.
Melbourne PEN: We are delighted to announce that the Melbourne PEN Centre has moved into the new Wheeler Centre for Books Writing and Ideas. The Wheeler Centre is the centrepiece of Melbourne's UNESCO City of Literature Initiative. Melbourne was declared a UNESCO City of Literature at the end of 2009. The first event, ‘Double Jeopardy: Women Writers in Dangerous Places' to mark International Women's Day, was held there on March 14.
Hungarian and Uyghur PEN: After the success of the Ural-Altaic PEN Network's first conference last summer in Istanbul, the Hungarian and Uyghur PEN Centres will be hosting the International PEN Conference on Ural-Altaic Linguistics and Poetry in Taja, Hungary, May 26 - 30. The conference will bring together poets and linguists from countries where Ural or Altaic languages are spoken. The goal with this meeting is to engage writers within the region in international academic and literary exchanges as a step towards promoting open debate and freedom of speech. A publication will follow with 12 academic papers in English and a collection of original poetry in several languages.
Independent Chinese PEN (ICPC): On 22 March, ICPC held its annual Freedom to Write Award, Lin Zhao Memorial Award and Writers in Prison Award with a seminar on ‘Literature and Civil Society' in Hong Kong. Over 60 writers and journalists from Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Sichuan and Guangdong as well as Taiwan, USA, Russia and Australia joined representatives from ICPC, Hong Kong Chinese PEN and PEN American Center in celebrating the work of Mr. Wang Jianhui (7th Freedom to Write Award), Ms. Tsering Woeser (5th Lin Zhao Memorial Award) and Dr. Xu Zerong (4th Writers in Prison Award). None of the three awardees could appear to receive their honours however as all of them have restricted freedom of movement in mainland China; one is serving a lengthy sentence in prison while the other two said that it was not advisable for them to travel to Hong Kong.
NEWS FROM ELSEWHERE
New season at the Southbank Centre in London
Philip Pullman retells the life of Jesus, Roddy Doyle on Dead Republic, Gil Scott Heron on his influences and politics, a world of literature with Derek Walcott, Richard Ford and Nawal El Saadawi, Yann Martel on Beatrice and Virgil, and the Orange Prize Readings - all of this and more at Southbank Centre this April - June 2010. Tickets on sale now: 0871 663 2500 www.southbankcentre.co.uk
The next newsletter will be available in June 2010.
PEN Centres: please send your news for inclusion to Emily Bromfield, emily.bromfield@internationalpen.org.uk
Originally founded in 1921 to promote literature, today International PEN has over 140 Centres in 100 countries across the globe. Our primary goal is to engage with, and empower, societies and communities across cultures and languages, through reading and writing. We believe that writers can play a crucial role in changing and developing civil society. We do this through the promotion of literature, international campaigning on issues such as translation and freedom of expression and improving access to literature at international, regional and national levels. Our membership is open to all published writers who subscribe to the PEN Charter regardless of nationality, language, race, colour or religion. International PEN is a non-political organisation and has special consultative status at UNESCO and the United Nations.
International PEN, Brownlow House, 50/51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER
Email: info@internationalpen.org.uk
Website: www.internationalpen.org.uk
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To find out more visit www.internationalpen.org.uk
