For PEN America, the window to salvage this year’s literary awards and World Voices Festival—as well as perhaps the wider reputation of the organization—is rapidly closing.
With the PEN America Literary Awards ceremony less than two weeks away, 29 writers and translators (out of 87 nominees) have now withdrawn from consideration for 10 different awards due to what they see as PEN’s inadequate response to the unfolding genocide in Gaza.
From the letter to PEN leaders:
We stand in solidarity with one another and with the people of Palestine in our refusal to lend our names and tacit approval to PEN America’s disgraceful inaction.
Since October 7th, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been murdered and over 70,000 injured by the state of Israel. As we write this, more than a million people in Gaza are facing a catastrophic lack of food as a result of Israel’s starvation—an indisputable tactic of genocide.
Also since October 7th, thousands of writers have written and signed letters demanding that PEN America speak out and stand in solidarity with Palestinian writers. PEN America was slow to speak on this incomparable loss of Palestinian life—and when PEN did decide to speak, the organization’s statements showed a lack of proportional empathy, and were often laced with ahistorical, Zionist propaganda under the guise of neutrality. Neutrality is a betrayal of justice....
https://lithub.com/the-pen-awards-are-on-the-brink-of-collapse/
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