PEN American Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PEN American Center (PEN), founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. The Center has a membership of 3,300 writers, editors, and translators. PEN American Center is the largest of the 144 centers that belong to International PEN, the worldwide association of writers that defends those who are harassed, imprisoned and killed for their views.[1] This center should not be confused with PEN Center USA, which is located in Los Angeles and was founded in 1943.
Traditional membership to PEN requires the publication of two or more books of a literary character or one book that has won a major prize. Recently, PEN opened their membership to the public; however, supporters who do not meet the traditional criteria must join as associates, and are not permitted benefits such as access to health insurance.[2]
Over the years, PEN American Center's membership has included many of the leading lights in the American literary establishment, including James Baldwin, Willa Cather, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Thomas Mann, Arthur Miller, Marianne Moore, Susan Sontag, Paul Auster, Salman Rushdie and John Steinbeck.
In addition to defending persecuted writers, PEN American Center sponsors public literary programs and forums on current issues, sends prominent authors to inner-city schools to encourage reading and writing, administers literary prizes, promotes international literature that might otherwise go unread in the United States, and offers grants and loans to writers facing financial or medical emergencies.
PEN is also a member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of nongovernmental organizations that monitors free expression violations worldwide and defends journalists, writers, human rights activists and Internet users who are persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of expression.
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[edit] PEN World Voices Festival
Since 2005, PEN American Center has hosted the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature in New York City, which brings renowned writers from around the world together to share ideas, give public readings and talks, and foster debate on literature and freedom of expression.[3]
[edit] Awards program
PEN American Center has an extensive program of annual awards and fellowships that serve to recognize recent outstanding endeavours in various literary fields and to encourage different forms of literary production:
- PEN Beyond Margins Award, for books by authors of color.
- PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize, for book-length translations from any language into English.
- PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, for book-length translations from any language into English.
- PEN Publisher Award, for publishers in general.
- PEN/Translation Fund Grants, available since 2004 to support the translation of book-length works of fiction or creative non-fiction that have either not previously appeared in English, or have appeared only in an egregiously flawed translation.
- PEN Writers Fund, an emergency fund for professional writers with serious financial difficulties.[4]
- PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction,
- PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir.
- PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction
- PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers whose début works are deemed to show "great promise".
- PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award
- PEN/Jerard Fund Award, for promising women writers of general nonfiction.
- PEN/Gregory Kolovakos Award, for translations from Spanish or other Hispanic languages.
- PEN/Nora Magid Award, for magazine publishing.
- PEN/Malamud Award, annual award for excellence in the art of the short story.
- PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, for literary translators who have shown "a commitment to excellence".
- PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship, for children's or young-adult fiction.
- PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award
- PEN/Nabokov Award, for writers who have made achievements "in a variety of literary genres".
- PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry, for emerging poets.
- PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Awards for Drama: a medal for an accomplished dramatist, and a stipend for an up-and-coming playwright.
- PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, for U.S. poets with a "notable and accomplished presence".
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ PEN American Center - About
- ^ PEN American Center - Become a Member
- ^ PEN World Voices
- ^ PEN American Center Writers Fund
