The PEN Literary Awards are running out of authors to honor and facing a credibility problem among their peers. In a scathing rebuke of PEN America, 29 authors and translators have withdrawn from consideration or outright declined the 2024 awards. On April 17, authors sent a letter of refusal to PEN’s managing directors, the board liaison, President Jennifer Boyland, and CEO Suzanne Nossel, signed by 21 withdrawing authors and nine additional signatories, who pledged to donate prize money in support of Gaza. They argue that PEN has failed to protect Palestinian writers in Gaza despite the organization’s mission to safeguard freedom of expression globally. Of those nominated for the annual $75,000 Jean Stein Book Award, nine of ten withdrew, leaving the most prestigious category with only one author in competition. Elsewhere on the lists, which totaled 87 authors, 20 have declined the Robert W. Bingham, Hemingway, Voelcker, and PEN translation awards.
“We cannot, in good faith, align with an organization that has shown such blatant disregard of our collective values,” the letter reads. “We stand in solidarity with a free Palestine. We refuse to be honored by an organization that acts as a cultural front for American exceptionalism. We refuse to gild the reputation of an organization that runs interference for an administration aiding and abetting genocide with our tax dollars. And we refuse to take part in celebrations that will serve to overshadow PEN’s complicity in normalizing genocide.”
The news comes after months of criticism over the organization’s response to the war in Gaza. On March 14, authors withdrew from the PEN World Voices Festival, saying the nonprofit “betrayed the organization’s professed commitment to peace and equality.” In February, 1,300 authors signed an open letter urging PEN to “respond to the extraordinary threat that Israel’s genocide of Palestinians represents for the lives of writers in Palestine and to freedom of expression everywhere.”
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