On the 2025 PEN America Literary Awards and World Voices Festival
A coalition of individual writers and groups, led by WAWOG, launched a pressure campaign against PEN America in late 2023 because of the organization’s myriad failures to meaningfully address the genocide in Palestine. PEN America’s tepid response to the murder of Palestinian writers exemplifies the organization’s double standards on free speech and its history of normalizing the apartheid state of ‘Israel’. We called for a full boycott of the organization, noting its complicity in the continuing ‘Israeli’ genocide of the Palestinian people.
Our campaign achieved major victories in 2024. Dozens withdrew their books from consideration for PENAmerica’s Literary Awards, resulting in the cancellation of the awards ceremony, and the Jean Stein Award purse of $75,000 was redirected to relief efforts in Gaza at the request of the Stein estate. Next, the World Voices Festival was cancelled after overwhelming withdrawals. Staff turnover hit an all-time high as a so-called “free speech” organization clamped down on the free expression of its own staffers. And in November 2024, PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel finally stepped down from her position, acceding to one of our boycott demands.
PEN has made numerous promises of repair and redress, including internal audits and accountability processes. Not one of them has actually happened. To preempt controversy ahead of their 2025 Literary Awards PEN America sought reassurance from presses that nominated authors would not withdraw. In short, PEN has tried to circumvent withdrawal as a political act and “boycott-proof” their prizes. Attempting to artificially limit the pool of the “best books of 2024” makes a mockery of the prizes themselves. This "free speech" organization hopes to stifle our right to boycott. PEN’s suppressive actions set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the literary world: to avoid criticism, engage only with writers who are willing to stay silent.
PEN will soon be announcing its longlist for the 2025 Literary Awards, and is currently seeking participants for its World Voices festival. We urge writers of conscience: refuse to allow PEN America to gild its reputation with your names.
The boycott stands.
