Call for Translators’ Submissions to PEN Presents
PEN Presents showcases the work of literary translation, and aims to give UK publishers access to titles from underrepresented languages and regions.
News
Farewell, Asmara
Aaron Berhane was a beloved leader of our centre’s Writers in Exile community and a valued member of PEN Canada’s Board of Directors before his untimely death, due to Covid-19, in May 2021. He fled Eritrea in 2002, following a draconian crackdown on the independent press. The following extract from his posthumously published memoir The Burden of Exile: A Banned Journalist’s Flight from Dictatorship, recounts his early days hiding from government agents in Asmara.
PEN PROTEST / DAY OF THE DEAD 2022
From 2 to 7 November, to mark PEN International’s PEN Protest/Day of the Dead Campaign and the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.
Special Event Oct 23: Hot Docs & Ageless International Film Festival — Freedom of Expression Screenings
The event opens with a screening of the short film, Codename Sally, documenting the extraordinary efforts of a handful of PEN Canada members to bring Salman Rushdie in total secrecy and under heavy security, to the stage of the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto for the PEN Benefit thirty years ago.
Luis Horacio Nájera wins 2022 Humber College Writers-in-Exile Scholarship
TORONTO, ON, October 12, 2022 – Award-winning journalist and crime analyst Luis Horacio Nájera is the recipient of the 2022 PEN Canada-Humber College Writers-in-Exile Scholarship, which provides peer mentorship to …
By burning their head scarves, Iranian women are restoring their voices
AVA HOMA CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 Ava Homa is the Nautilus Book award-winning author of Daughters of Smoke and Fire. Among the innumerable viral …
The world must stand with Salman Rushdie and writers like him
JOHN RALSTON SAUL CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 28, 2022 John Ralston Saul is president emeritus of PEN International. His 14 books include The Collapse of Globalism …
After the attack on Salman Rushdie, we must continue to speak out
GRACE WESTCOTT SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 Thirty years ago, PEN Canada, a non-partisan organization that supports freedom of expression in Canada and writers endangered …
Q&A with Fareh Malik — New Voices Award winner
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.”
Seeking Justice for Dawit Isaak
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.