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March 10, 2008 | Poets & Writers | Toi Derricotte, A.M. Homes, and Peter Straub To Receive Awards
Congratulations to A.M. Homes, who will receive the Barnes & Noble Writers For Writers Award, in recognition of her service to PEN and other organizations. Homes currently chairs the PEN Emergency Writers Fund and serves on the PEN Board. >> More
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October 24, 2007 | Bloomberg | Abused Cuban Journalist, Spirit Strong, Worsening in Hospital
Imprisoned Cuban journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, hospitalized last month, faces medical procedures today that family members said could further imperil his already fragile health. >> More
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September 18, 2007 | Bloomberg | Jailed Cuban Writer, Extremely Ill, Hospitalized; May Be Freed
In the early morning hours of Sept. 14, jailed Cuban journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez was transferred across the island nation from Kilo 7, a prison in Camaguey, to Carlos J. Finlay military hospital in Havana. >> More
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June 28, 2007 | Bloomberg | Cuba Keeps Writer in Jail: No Medicine for Hernandez Gonzalez
"Mi hijo esta muy mal. Muy mal."
Even on the speakerphone from Miami, Blanca Gonzalez's voice is
unmistakably choked with emotion. "My son is doing badly. Very
badly," she says. "He said that from there he will leave
dead." >> More
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May 2, 2007 | The New York Sun | PEN Honors Cuban Dissident
An independent journalist, Normando Hernández González, was awarded the 2007 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on Monday night. He could not travel to receive the award at the PEN American Center's Literary Gala because he languishes in prison in Cuba for his role in starting an independent newspaper and a school for journalists there. >> More
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February 26, 2007 | Washington Post | For Roth, a 3rd PEN/Faulkner Win
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation will announce today that Philip Roth has won its 2007 award for fiction for his novel Everyman—making Roth the first writer to receive the award three times. >> More
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February 4, 2007 | New York Times | Hungry Heart
Staring at a map of her new country, Nguyen wondered about New York and Los Angeles: “I had no idea what such cities were like, but I was convinced people were happier out on the coasts, living in a nexus between so much land and water. Gazing at the crisscrossing lines of Manhattan or the blue vastness of the oceans, I would feel something I could only describe as missingness.” >> More
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June 15, 2006 | Nevada News | Assistant English professor’s debut work wins PEN award
Christopher Coake, an assistant English professor, received the prestigious PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers for his debut work, "We’re in Trouble," a collection of dramatic short stories, on May 22. >> More
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May 21, 2006 | The Wichita Eagle | WSU prof 'fills gap' with translation
Baldridge's training in philosophy prepared him well for the works of French poet and intellectual Michel Deguy. >> More
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May 3, 2006 | Turkish Daily News | Philip Roth wins $20,000 PEN award
Philip Roth, whose many novels include "Portnoy's Complaint" and "The Plot Against America," has received the PEN/Nabokov Award for lifetime achievement, a prize worth $20,000. >> More
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May 3, 2006 | New York Sun | A Dark & Powerful Force From Down South
If you haven't heard of Roberto Bolano, you will soon. The Chilean author, who died of liver failure in 2003, was the subject of a major panel discussion at last week's PEN festival. >> More
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April 20, 2006 | New York Times | In Surprise, PEN Honoree Attends Gala
A novelist from Turkmenistan whose books have been banned and who has been under house arrest for two years became the first writer in 20 years to personally accept a Freedom to Write award from PEN American Center.
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April 19, 2006 | USA Today | PEN recognizes the write to be free
Authors tend to complain. About their publishers or editors. About not selling enough books or getting enough attention. But every spring, PEN, an international group of writers, holds a literary gala that puts the everyday concerns of authors in perspective. >> More
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May 17, 2005 | Joan Airoldi | Librarian's brush with FBI shapes her view of the USA Patriot Act
On June 8, 2004, an FBI agent stopped at the Deming branch of the Whatcom County Library System in northwest Washington and requested a list of the people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. We said no. >> More
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April 21, 2005 | Seattle Times | Deming's defender of words
The biggest battles, the ones that Really Count, always seem to start in the smallest places. >> More
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December 9, 2004 | Hartford Courant | Lauded Writer Given Parole
The state has granted parole to a woman who won a $25,000 writing award with the help of best-selling author Wally Lamb. >> More
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November 28, 1999 | New York Times | 'Doing Time'
We've seen it all already, and it has been real enough, the cellblock riots, the black majority, what goes on inside prison walls. >> More
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June 28, 2010 | Los Angeles Times (blog) | PEN launches online book group with Lispector
On July 6, PEN American Center launches its first online book club. >> More
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June 17, 2010 | UTNE Reader | Famous Authors, at Rest and at Email
Say there’s a room. In the room you have a chair and a desk. On the desk is a computer, with an internet connection. >> More
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October 22, 2005 | Washington Post | ...But Not at Writers' Expense
Google says writers and publishers should be happy about this: It will increase their exposure and maybe lead to more book sales. That's a devil's bargain. >> More
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October 22, 2005 | Washington Post | Riches We Must Share...
The digitization of information is a profound gesture that holds open our doors. Limiting access to information is tantamount to limiting the opportunities of our citizens. >> More
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April 24, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Books vs. Goons
 A butterfly flaps its wings in India, and we feel the breeze on our cheeks here in New York. A throat is cleared somewhere in Africa and in California there's an answering cough. >> More
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PEN American Center today celebrated the news that Chinese colleague Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic, writer, and political activist who is serving an 11-year sentence in a Chinese prison, is the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. 
On the eve of Barack Obama’s first state visit to China, PEN American Center has sent a letter urging the president to intervene on behalf of the more than 40 writers imprisoned in that country because of their work. 
Writing, like other compulsions, can be dangerous for your health. It can bring fame and fortune, which is bad enough -- Pen a hard truth and you also face calumny, imprisonment and death. 
America’s failure to understand, trust, and
protect its closest friends in Iraq is a small drama that contains the
larger history of defeat. 
Recently, I asked my friend what he would do if U.S. forces began to withdraw from Baghdad. Osman, an utterly secular Sunni who despises the religious extremists of both sects, replied, "I would have to be protected by Al Qaeda." 
I think we should always be alarmed when there’s a growing imbalance betwen what the government knows about its citizens, and what those citizens, in turn, know about their government. 
Renowned Iranian investigative journalist and dissident discusses with Democracy Now! why he recently declined an invitation to the meet with President Bush in the White House. 
The battle between freedom and despotism in Iran remains unresolved for deeply internal reasons. It is, I am convinced, a problem with profound historical and cultural roots. 
To respect the humanity and religious beliefs of minorities is not to suggest that we should limit freedom of thought on their behalf. 
The work room of the writer Orhan Pamuk looks out over the Bosphorus, that fabled strip of water which, depending on how you see these things, separates or unites—or, perhaps, separates and unites—the worlds of Europe and Asia. 
I recently returned from a trip to Britain, where I discovered, to my consternation, that the government is proposing a law to ban what it is calling "incitement to religious hatred." 
American democracy provides inspiration by example (rather than by military occupation) to people all over the world who are seeking justice and freedom. 
Here in the United States we have heard our leaders and representatives in Congress and the White House decry terrorism and proclaim our dedication as a nation to the principle of free expression. But do we honor and protect this principle as vigorously as we should? 
PEN American Center welcomed the news today that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has signed orders effectively ending the exclusion of Swiss Scholar Tariq Ramadan from the United States, calling the move “a step towards restoring the First Amendment right of American citizens to seek a full range of information and ideas.” 
State and Homeland Security have interpreted the language of the Patriot Act so loosely that, according to official documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, anyone who is guilty of “irresponsible expressions of opinion” can be refused entry to the United States. 
It still haunts me, the first time—it was in Chile, in October of 1973—that I met someone who had been tortured. 
For many who remember what it means to live under a dictatorial regime, a regime in which citizens must leave work or school to witness public executions, torture is not just an individual affliction but a communal one. 
The law provides us with a rational, commonly ratified code of morality. In subverting this shared deference to law, the Bush administration, with its zeal for secrecy, intimidation and shadowy alliances, endangers us all. 
On Mardi Gras Day, the nation will be looking to New Orleans to see if we are wearing masks. 
Picture Santa’s sled with a rolling kitchenette attached and you have some idea about the size of a FEMA trailer. 
When their government turned its back on them, survivors of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake were galvanized into political action. Katrina survivors may take a similar lesson from today's disaster. 
These tragedies, it's worth remembering, grant us an opportunity to understand what is perhaps our finest raw material: our humanity. 
I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. 
I write in the place of others, today, for the ones who can't be found. And there is a blunt ending now, one we always feared, never wished for, do not deserve. 
In May, Ali al-Domeini, a leading poet, and two scholars were given long prison sentences for having circulated a letter they had written to Crown Prince Abdullah calling for political, economic and social reforms. 
It seems surreal: The president's nominee for the highest legal position in the land is a proponent of torture. 
At least since Watergate, Americans have come to take for granted a certain story line of scandal, in which revelation is followed by investigation, adjudication and expiation. 
When the international and combined Haitian forces left Bel-Air, gang members came to my uncle's home, told him that 15 of their friends had been killed and said he had to pay for the burials or die. 
Why does the government need the power to search records of people who are not suspected of being terrorists or agents of a foreign government? 
PEN believes that it is urgently necessary to review the USA Patriot Act and the full range of antiterrorism laws and orders enacted since Sept. 11, 2001. 
The word "patriotism" is increasingly being used as a bludgeon with which to attack critics of the shameful war in Iraq, as a gag to silence dissenters accused of being unpatriotic. 
As the ultimate guardians of language and its complexity, writers have always felt the need to deal with the great crises of their time. 
Will we become our enemy or not? Will we become repressive as our enemy is repressive? Will we become intolerant as our enemy is intolerant? Or will we not? 
The PEN Club has rules that prohibit support for a political candidate, however, it's an organization that has always fought for freedom of expression in different countries, and, as Salman Rushdie reminded us during that meeting, it's important not to ignore a problem when it knocks on our own door. 
So now we think we know who took some of the photographs at Abu Ghraib. The works attributed to Specialist Jeremy Sivits are fated to remain among the indelible images of our time. 
