Pen International

The PEN Story

PEN International has a vibrant and storied history which now spans almost a century. Over the years, the course of history has defined our key moments and influenced the way we have evolved as an organisation. In our 90th year, we would like to present the public with a brief overview of our history, represented in the timeline below.

1921

• PEN is founded by the British poet, playwright and peace activist Catharine Amy Dawson-Scott, as an international dinner party club providing a creative space for writers to share ideas and a forum uniting writers irrespective of their culture, language or political opinion.

1923

• PEN holds its first international congress, chaired by John Galsworthy, and is established as one of the world’s first NGOs and the first organisation advocating the inseparability of freedom of expression and literature.

1926

• Writers from fifteen nations meet at the annual congress in Berlin and the idea of national centres representing their own language and literature is consolidated.

1929

• Thomas Mann receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

1931

• The rise of National Socialism in Germany and Fascism in Spain presents a challenge to PEN’s previously non-political stance. The PEN London committee launches an appeal to “All Governments”, relating to religious and political prisoners.

1932

• John Galsworthy, PEN’s first president, receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1933

• Tensions run high at the Dubrovnik congress, as international delegates condemn the German centre’s failure to protest at Nazi book burnings. PEN President H.G. Wells declares: ‘We must clearly state where we stand and what we advocate – progress or return to the Middle Ages’. Henry Seidel Canby (USA) proposes the need for delegates to ’take appropriate measures’ against centres violating the terms and spirit of the International Charter. The German delegates attempt to obstruct Canby’s resolution and seek to prevent the exiled German-Jewish writer Ernst Toller from addressing congress. After a majority vote in favour of Toller’s right to speak, German delegates leave the congress in protest. The German centre is subsequently expelled.

Madness holds sway over our time, barbarism holds sway over men… The voice of truth is never pleasant to those in positions of power. Those who fought for the truth yesterday are now being subjected to torture. We might never see each other again, for our future is in danger. Regardless of how we fight, we must have the same goal before us – freeing mankind from lies and injustice. (Ernst Toller, 1933)

1934

• As a host of exiled German writers flee to London, the first exile centre, German-speaking Writers Abroad, is formed to support them.

1937

• Arthur Koestler is imprisoned and sentenced to death in Fascist Spain and PEN leads a successful campaign for his release, in the form of a cable to General Franco, bearing the names of PEN council members, as well as those of E.M. Forster and Aldous Huxley.

1938

• At the Prague congress, resolutions are passed condemning all forms of persecution, including anti-Semitism. Jules Romains, International President, states:

Sometimes we are accused of pushing politics. How naïve and hypocritical! We want nothing better than to leave politics alone, provided that it leaves us alone. By asking us not to see the huge, untold consequences affecting our most valuable and high minded interests, and actions that are political by their very origin and repercussions, we are asked to be more ignorant and blinder than is even possible.

Focus is also placed upon the Second Sino-Japanese War and it is suggested that Japan might be asked to spare China’s cultural monuments and universities.

• In London, appeal funds are set up to provide hospitality and financial assistance to the thousands of German, Austrian and Czechoslovakian writers forced into exile, as well as for Catalan writers, who are sent food parcels. PEN devotes itself to writing supporting letters for visas into Britain, the US and Canada, and tries to keep refugees out of internment camps. Various PEN members volunteer to give refugees lessons in English.

1940

• Storm Jameson, the first female president of English PEN, explicitly advocates writers’ duty to take a political stance. At her initiative, PEN publishes the ‘Appeal to the Conscience of the World’ and sends it to all Allied countries and PEN centres, urging writers “to make it clear to people in [their] country that we with our allies are not fighting only for ourselves but for the belief we share with every man, of any race and religion, who holds that men should respect each other and minds should be free”. The appeal is covered by the international media and broadcast on the BBC’s foreign service.

• Just before the fall of Paris, international president Jules Romains transfers dangerous documents including membership cards and letters from Paris to Lisbon, to protect writers from Nazi retribution.

1941

• Members of PEN welcome Russian participation in the war and send greetings to Russian writers.

1946

• PEN’s international executive sends an open letter to Soviet writers and intellectuals, inviting them to join PEN and urging the foundation of links between the USSR and the West via the free circulation of writing and information.

1947

• UNESCO and the UN are represented at PEN’s international congress in Zurich.
1948

• New German PEN Club is founded.

1949
• PEN acquires consultative status at the United Nations as ‘representative of the writers of the world’.

1950

• A protest is made to Iran, concerning the hardship suffered by its political prisoners.

1952
• François Mauriac, PEN president, receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Mid- to late 1950s

• In Hungary the public revolt against communist rule fails and the Austrian PEN centre is inundated with refugees. American PEN sends financial assistance to Vienna for food and shelter and work is found for those Hungarians who managed to flee to the USA. An open ‘letter of conscience’ is sent to the Hungarian government with nearly 300 signatories.

1960

• The International Writers in Prison Committee is formed to investigate the cases of writers imprisoned solely for their writings and opinions, and to co-ordinate the responses and actions of individual centres. The case of Albanian writer Musine Kokalari, persecuted by the communist regime in Albania and sentenced to twenty years in prison by the military court of Tirana, is one of the first of thirty cases considered by the committee.

1962

• During the Cuban missile crisis, the American centre works to ensure that Cubans can participate at congress without the intervention of the American government.

• The Philippine centre organises an Asian Writers’ Conference in Manila, at which it is agreed to produce a regular anthology of Asian writing.

1966

• PEN president Arthur Miller successfully presses the Johnson administration to grant Pablo Neruda a visa so that he can attend the New York congress, despite the fact that he is a communist.

1967

• Among the first cases of the International Writers in Prison Committee is that of Wole Soyinka, marked for execution by the Nigerian head of state. Under the presidency of Arthur Miller, PEN successfully appeals for his release.

1971

• Pablo Neruda receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

1972

• Heinrich Böll, PEN president, receives the Nobel Prize for Literature and hands over part of his prize money to a fund instigated by Dutch PEN members, to help persecuted writers and their families.

1978

• The Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee is founded, to foster the possibility of readers and writers exploring writing from cultures other than their own.

1980

• PEN protests against the imprisonment of Czech writer Václav Havel, as well as others, for his role in the initiative Charter 77, a text criticising the Communist government for failing to adhere to the human rights requirements of various documents it had signed, among them the United Nations covenants on political, civil, economic, and cultural rights. PEN members including Arthur Miller, E. L. Doctorow and Jerzy Kosiński stage a demonstration and circulate a petition on Havel’s behalf.

1981

• On the 15th November, the Writers in Prison Committee launches The Day of the Imprisoned Writer, an event to be observed annually, to raise awareness of writers imprisoned and commemorate those killed for the practice of their professions.

1984

• The Writers for Peace Committee is created, in response to the Cold War limiting opportunities for writers to collaborate across the East-West divide. The committee is conceived as a haven for writers, especially those from regions in conflict, to share ideas and make their voices heard.

1985

• Harold Pinter and Arthur Miller visit Istanbul to meet with imprisoned writers, raise global awareness of the repressive regime in Turkey and expose the American government’s failure to scrutinise policies whilst the Turkish Republic remained an important ally in the Cold War.

1986

• Wole Soyinka receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

1989

• Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie in response to the publication of The Satanic Verses: PEN plays a key role in the global campaign calling for the withdrawal of the fatwa.

• At the international congress in Canada, women writers gain fifty percent representation for the first time and have greater opportunity to discuss issues faced by women writers internationally.

1991

• The Women Writers’ Committee is established, to promote challenges faced by women writers around the world, such as unequal education, unequal access to resources and prohibition from writing.

• Nadine Gordimer receives Nobel Prize in Literature.
• Aung San Suu Kyi, Honorary Member of English PEN, receives Nobel Peace Prize.

1992

• Derek Walcott receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

1993

Toni Morrison receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

1994

• After years of conflict between PEN centres in the former Yugoslavia, during which Miloš Mikeln (then president of Slovenian PEN) accused Serbian writers of “spreading hatred” and “assisting chauvinistic propaganda”, the new international president, Ronald Harwood, visits Belgrade to encounter the views of Serbian PEN first hand. He subsequently agrees to take Serbian PEN’s proposal for cooperation and renewed literary connections between PEN centres in the former Yugoslavia to Zagreb, and urges Serbian PEN members to attend the upcoming congress in Prague, despite internal and external opposition. In November, Serbian delegates Vida Ognjenović, Predrag Palavestra and Dušan Veličković attend congress, resulting in the readmission of Serbian PEN to the Writers for Peace Committee and the reopening of dialogue.

• Kenzaburo Oe receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

1995-6

• PEN publishes an open letter addressed to international heads of state on behalf of Chinese journalist and campaigner for democratic reform, Wei Jing-sheng, charged by the Chinese Communist Party with attempting to overthrow the government and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. Signatories of the letter, requesting that every available influence be brought to bear to secure his release, include Jacques Derrida, Günter Grass and Susan Sontag.

1999

• Günter Grass receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

2001

• International PEN Women Writers Committee produces the first volume of Nuestra Voz, Our Voice, Notre Voix, an anthology composed of poetry, fiction and essays, contributed by 113 women writers from 33 countries, writing in Spanish, English, and French.

2003

• The Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee founds Diversity, a multilingual electronic literary collection with works of contemporary authors translated from languages of lesser currency into other world languages and the official languages of International PEN.

• John M. Coetzee, Vice President of PEN International and South African PEN member, receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

2004

• The Writers in Prison Committee publishes Anti-Terrorism, Writers and Freedom of Expression, a report which assesses the repression of writers and the climate of fear that has emerged in the name of anti-terrorism.

2005

• International PEN collaborates with the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee and the Kurdish and Turkish PEN Centres to bring together, for the first time in modern history, Kurdish and Turkish languages, literatures and writers to engage in a discussion of cultural diversity and its relation to dialogue, peace, language and translation, and the role of writers in its support.

• The International PEN Women Writers Committee and the Bishkek Centre hold a regional conference on the theme of ‘Women and Censorship’, focusing on the experiences of women writers in Central Asia. The conference provides an opportunity for women writers to form a community, in a region where they have all but vanished from the public scene.

• Harold Pinter, former officer of PEN International, receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

2006

• PEN members around the world mark the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya with vigils, tributes and events, and International PEN campaigns on her behalf against impunity. Politkovskaya had received death threats since 1999, following her pioneering reports on alleged human rights abuses by the Russian armed forces in Chechnya.

• Orhan Pamuk, PEN member, receives Nobel Prize in Literature.

2007

• During the congress in Dakar, Senegal, International PEN presents Freedoms, a night of African literature, celebrating the diversity of writings from across the continent, with Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina as host.

• International PEN collaborates with regional centres in Africa to establish international programmes with the priorities of education, library and community access, literature and public engagement. The first programmes include literary readings in Algeria, family oriented storytelling events in Zambia and creative writing workshops on the theme of childhood memory for young people in Uganda.

• International PEN launches a worldwide campaign calling for the repeal of laws that treat defamation as a criminal rather than a civil offence. Focus is placed upon the history and application of insult laws in Turkey; the Egyptian legal system and libel charges; the European Union and 11 countries with laws penalising insult to the state, its institutions and royal families, and the use of criminal defamation legislation in Africa to silence print journalists.

2008

• In the year of the Beijing Olympics, International PEN launches a worldwide campaign of media reporting, petitions, government lobbying, lectures and readings, calling for freedom of expression and improved civil and political rights for all Chinese writers and journalists. A poem relay is initiated to run parallel to the Olympic torch relay: the poem ‘June’, written by imprisoned Chinese poet and journalist, Shi Tao, which alludes to the Tiananmen Square protests, travels the world via the internet and is translated into 100 different languages.

• International PEN launches its first festival, Free the Word! On the theme of ‘The Writer Next Door’, to celebrate contemporary literature from around the world.

2009

• The Writers in Prison Committee launches a worldwide campaign highlighting the persecution of writers and journalists particularly in Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela. Writers including Lydia Cacho, Noam Chomsky and Derek Walcott put their name to a ‘Declaration in Defence of the Freedom to Write in the Americas’. A postcard action is released, calling for an end to the climate of impunity surrounding journalist murders and disappearances in Mexico.

• In the month preceding the Iranian Presidential Elections, the Writers in Prison Committee and International PEN campaign on behalf of six writers, journalists and cultural activists from Iran’s ethnic regions, sentenced for their critical reporting and peaceful activism on minority rights. Appeals are sent to the Iranian government.

• The Writers for Peace Committee write a number of open letters calling for dialogue in the Middle East, Iran and Afghanistan, as well as freedom of the press in Russia and the protection of minority cultures in China.

• Uyghur writer Nurmuhemmet Yasin, whose story ‘Wild Pigeons’ resulted in his arrest and detention by Chinese authorities, is included as the lead guest writer in the PEN International Magazine, “Context: Asia Pacific”, to honour him and attest to the fact that he has not been forgotten.

• Through the Latin America and Caribbean regional programme, the Bolivian PEN centre devises a series of workshops to be held in primary schools, in response to an identified lack of teaching materials addressing the country’s indigenous languages and culture. A book, Pedacitos, is published, comprising a selection of texts and thoughts written by local children on issues of human rights, gender equality and environment.

2010
• Mario Vargas Llosa, PEN President, receives Nobel Prize for Literature.

• Liu Xiaobo, former president of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China, but is unable to receive the prize in person due to serving an 11 year jail sentence in north-east China for state subversion. PEN International attends the Nobel Prize Ceremony representing Liu Xiaobo, whose empty chair has symbolic significance to PEN, which has been using the image of the empty chair to represent imprisoned and persecuted writers since 1980.

• The Asia Pacific Regional Programme, launched in 2009, is expanded, with a focus on the implementation of education projects, in collaboration with Philippines PEN, Nepal PEN, and Tibetan Writers Abroad PEN.

• To commemorate its 50th Anniversary, the Writers in Prison Committee runs a year long campaign, ‘Because Writers Speak their Minds’. A book of 50 emblematic cases worked on over the last half-century is published.

• The Writers in Prison Committee carries out research on attacks on journalists and writers in Tunisia and lobbies at the European Union, meeting with representatives of the European Commission and Parliament to highlight various concerns, a new law criminalizing EU lobbying by Tunisian activists and the lack of an independent judiciary in Tunisia.

• PEN International hosts a United Nations panel in Geneva on ‘Faith and Free Speech: Defamation of Religions and Freedom of Expression’, to highlight the message that individuals have an absolute right to practice their religion freely and without discrimination or threat of violence, and that prohibitions on religious defamation are not an effective means to reduce bigotry or religious hatred. John Ranston Saul is joined on the panel by Agnes Callamard, Director of Article 19, Swiss-born and Oxford-based Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, and Budhy Rahman from the Asia Foundation in Indonesia. Internationally acclaimed writers, including Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka, make statements by videotape.

2011

• The Girona Manifesto for Linguistic Rights is ratified at the PEN International congress, promoting the value of linguistic diversity, the defence of minority languages and the need for the UN to recognise the right to use and protect one’s own language as a fundamental human right.

• PEN International renews calls for the release of over thirty writers imprisoned in China, including Liu Xiaobo.

• PEN International launches its ‘Day of the Dead’ campaign, commemorating Mexican writers and journalists who have been murdered, or who have disappeared, as a result of their work. PEN calls on the Mexican authorities to bring to justice those responsible for these crimes, and PEN members build personalised altars to the dead, to be displayed alongside photographs of murdered and missing journalists at public vigils.

2012

• In a new approach, the Executive of PEN, along with North American, Japanese and English PEN centres, lead a large delegation, PEN Protesta!, calling for the Mexican government to bring to an end the climate of impunity in which attacks on journalists and murders take place. In Mexico City, more than 50 writers and journalists read statements ranging from accounts of threats to declarations of outrage. PEN International publishes an open letter, voicing solidarity with the writers and journalists of Mexico, signed by 170 of the world’s leading authors, including Chinua Achebe, Margaret Atwood, Don DeLillo, Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, Philip Pullman and Derek Walcott. Shortly after the PEN Protesta! event, the Mexican Senate approves a constitutional amendment to federalize crimes against journalists.