PEN Canada celebrates literature, defends freedom of expression and aids writers in peril.
By Jennifer Lanthier A dramatic rise in book challenges and book bans targeting what are often called “diverse books” in children’s literature is sweeping North America. While the bans are …
Don Gillmor (centre) leads the workshop for the writers, including Bushra Elfadil (left) and Lidiia Karpenko (right). In January, eight members of PEN’s Writers-in-Exile group gathered around a table in …
Go Sherab Gyatso is one of four cases PEN International is featuring for this year’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer. Tashi Delek, Go Sherab Gyatso la, We were born on …
Image: People hold hands in a large circle as drummers perform on stage at event at LeBreton Flats on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Day in Ottawa, Canada on …
The author on her collection of poems, Hungry Ghosts, and “how food can bring together what trauma tears apart.”
Censorship of 2SLGBTQ+ writing “justice of the imagination,” the critical responsibility of showing all kids that any kid can be the hero of a story.
Anneli Andre-Barrett is a senior volunteer for the PEN Canada Writers in Exile (WiE) community, a Refugee Integration Mentor, and Skills Development Team member of Ontario’s Private Refugee Sponsor Network …
Toward a Practice of Collectivity By El Jones The following essay appears in Abolitionist Intimacies, and is reprinted with the permission of Fernwood Publishing. It is the summer of 2020, …
Fareh Malik is a spoken word poet from Hamilton, Ontario and the winner of the 2022 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award. His new book Streams that Lead Somewhere is available from Mawenzi Press. In its citation the New Voices Award jury praised Malik’s “tenderness and throat-grabbing use of imagery” and his “wide range of voices and tones to convey a nuanced spectrum of emotions and a laser sharp critique of Canada’s blatant and covert systemic racism.”
Dawit Isaak and his colleagues are the longest detained journalists in the world today. September 23, 2022 will mark 21 years of detention. Their cases and causes are not only heartbreaking and egregiously unjust, but emblematic of the global assault on media freedom by authoritarian regimes, which continues to intensify under the cover of a global pandemic of impunity.