PEN AMERICA HAS A WHOLE BUNCH OF WRITERS QUITE FURIOUS AT IT

02/12/2024

Over 600 writers have signed this open letter to PEN America. ‹ Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Fiction and Poetry News and Culture Lit Hub Radio Reading Lists Book Marks CrimeReads About Log In Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Literary Criticism Craft and Advice In Conversation On Translation Fiction and Poetry Short Story From the Novel Poem News and Culture History Science Politics Biography Memoir Food Technology Bookstores and Libraries Film and TV Travel Music Art and Photography The Hub Style Design Sports Freeman’s The Virtual Book Channel Lit Hub Radio Behind the Mic Beyond the Page The Cosmic Library The Critic and Her Publics Emergence Magazine Fiction/Non/Fiction First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing Future Fables The History of Literature I’m a Writer But Just the Right Book Keen On The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan New Books Network Read Smart Talk Easy Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast Write-minded Reading Lists The Best of the Decade Book Marks Best Reviewed Books BookMarks Daily Giveaway CrimeReads True Crime The Daily Thrill CrimeReads Daily Giveaway Log In The Hub News, Notes, Talk Over 600 writers have signed this open letter to PEN America. By Dan Sheehan February 9, 2024, 10:43am Over 600 writers and poets—including Roxane Gay, Alissa Nutting, Marie-Helene Bertino, Kiese Laymon, Saeed Jones, Fady Joudah, Carmen Maria Machado, Solmaz Sharif, Tommy Pico, Laura van den Berg, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah—have signed an impassioned open letter to PEN America, calling on the prominent free expression organization “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” and demanding that PEN “find the same zeal and passion that they have for banned books in the US to speak out about actual human beings in Palestine.” The release of this letter, which condemns PEN’s relative silence on the unfolding genocide in Gaza, comes on the heels of two prominent novelists cutting ties with the organization over its decision to platform controversial actor and outspoken ceasefire opponent Mayim Bialik at a PEN Out Loud event on January 31, as well as Palestinian-American writer Randa Jarrar’s forcible removal from said event .