English PEN

[13] Following the World War II, English PEN played a significant role in the emerging discourse around human rights, and was the first organisation to frame freedom of expression as a necessary precondition to literary creation.

"[15] The centenary programme includes events, residencies and workshops online and across the UK, culminating with a three-day festival of free thinking at London's Southbank Centre in September 2021.

The Assembly voted for a wider formulation, namely counteracting hate and not only based on race, class or nationality but also gender, religion and other categories of identity.

Consequently, Article 3 of the Charter reads as follows: "PEN members should at all times use their impact for mutual understanding and respect between nations; they commit to do everything to dispel all types of hate and support the ideal of unified humanity living in peace.

"[21] English PEN is a membership organisation, with a community of more than 1,000 members including novelists, journalists, nonfiction writers, editors, poets, essayists, playwrights, publishers, translators, agents, human rights activists, and readers.

[23] English PEN is governed by a board of trustees that is elected from and by members, and chaired by Ruth Borthwick, former chief executive and artistic director of the Arvon Foundation.

[1] Current trustees include: A cast-iron sculpture entitled Witness, commissioned by English PEN to mark their 90th anniversary and created by Antony Gormley, stands outside the British Library in London.

[26] Winners of the PEN Pinter Prize: Tony Harrison (2009),[27] Hanif Kureishi (2010),[28] Sir David Hare (2011),[29] Carol Ann Duffy (2012),[30] Tom Stoppard (2013),[31] Salman Rushdie (2014),[32] James Fenton (2015),[33] Margaret Atwood (2016),[34] Michael Longley (2017),[35] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2018),[36] Lemn Sissay (2019),[37] Linton Kwesi Johnson (2020),[38] Tsitsi Dangarembga (2021),[39] Malorie Blackman (2022),[40] Michael Rosen (2023),[41] and Arundhati Roy (2024).

[42][43] International Writers of Courage: "Zarganar" Maung Thura (2009),[44] Lydia Cacho (2010),[45] Roberto Saviano (2011),[46] Samar Yazbek (2012),[47] Iryna Khalip (2013),[48] Mazen Darwish (2014),[49] Raif Badawi (2015),[50] Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury (Tutul) (2016),[51] Mahvash Sabet (2017),[52] Waleed Abulkhair (2018),[53] Befeqadu Hailu (2019),[54] Amanuel Asrat (2020),[55] Kakwenza Rukirabashaija (2021),[56] Abduljalil al-Singace (2022),[57] and Rahile Dawut.

[59] Past winners include: Anita Anand's The Patient Assassin (2020),[60] Edward Wilson-Lee's The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books (2019),[61] S. A. Smith's Russia in Revolution (2018),[62] David Olusoga's Black and British (2017),[63] Nicholas Stargardt's The German War (2016),[64] Jessie Child's God's Traitors (2015),[65] David Reynolds' The Long Shadow (2014),[66] Keith Lowe's Savage Continent (2013),[67] James Gleick's The Information (2012),[68] Toby Wilkinson's The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt (2011),[69] Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity (2010),[70] Mark Thompson's The White War (2009),[71] Clair Wills' That Neutral Island (2008),[72] Vic Gatrell's City of Laughter (2007),[73] Bryan Ward Perkins' The Fall of Rome (2006),[74] Paul Fussell's The Boys' Crusade (2005), Richard Overy's The Dictators (2005),[75] Tom Holland's Rubicon (2004),[76] Jenny Uglow's The Lunar Men (2003),[77] and Margaret Macmillan's Peacemakers (2002).

[79] Past winners include: Alison Light's A Radical Romance (2020),[80] Yrsa Daley-Ward's The Terrible (2019),[81] Richard Beard's The Day That Went Missing (2018),[82] Amy Liptrot's The Outrun (2017),[83] Alice Jolly's Dead Babies and Seaside Towns (2016),[84] Henry Marsh's Do No Harm (2015),[85] Sonali Deraniyagala's The Wave (2014),[86] Richard Holloway's Leaving Alexandria (2013),[87] Duncan Fallowell's How To Disappear (2012),[88] Michael Frayn's My Father's Fortune (2011),[89] Gabriel Weston's Direct Red (2010),[90] Julia Blackburn's The Three of Us (2009),[91] Miranda Seymour's In My Father's House (2008),[92] Brian Thompson's Keeping Mum (2007),[93] Alan Bennett's Untold Stories (2006), Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy's Half an Arch (2005),[94] Bryan Magee's Clouds of Glory (2004), Jenny Diski's Stranger on a Train (2003), Michael Foss' Out of India (2002), Lorna Sage's Bad Blood (2001), Mark Frankland's Child Of My Time (2000), Margaret Forster's Precious Lives (1999), Katrin Fitzherbet's True To Both My Selves (1998), Tim Lott's The Scent of Dried Roses (1997), Eric Lomax's The Railway Man (1996), Paul Vaughan's Something in Linoleum (1995), Blake Morrison's And When Did You Last See Your Father?

(1994), Barry Humphries' More Please (1993), John Osborne's Almost a Gentleman (1992), Paul Binding's St Martin's Ride (1991), Germaine Greer's Daddy, We Hardly Knew You (1990), John Healy's The Grass Arena (1989), Anthony Burgess' Little Wilson and Big God (1988), Diana Athill After a Funeral (1987), Dan Jacobson's Time and Time Again (1986), Angelica Garnett's Deceived with Kindness (1985), Richard Cobb's Still Life (1984), Kathleen Dayus' Her People (1982), Ted Walker's High Path (1983), and Edward Blishen's Shaky Relations (1982).

[95] English PEN campaigns on behalf of writers, literary professionals, journalists, artists, cartoonists and musicians who are unjustly persecuted, harassed, imprisoned, and even murdered in violation of their right to freedom of expression.

Contributors include Svetlana Alexievich, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Priyamvada Gopal, Olga Tokarczuk, Irenosen Okojie,[112] and Edmund de Waal.

[114] It offers vulnerable, often marginalised and unheard people the opportunity to express their voices by taking part in imaginative and transformative creative writing and reading projects.

[115] Thanks to funding from John Lyon's Charity and the Limbourne Trust, English PEN ran Brave New Voices 2.0, a three-year creative writing and translation project with young refugees and asylum seekers celebrating multilingualism and self-expression.

The Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia was accused of libel by Mishcon de Reya "on the instruction of both Malta's prime minister and Henley & Partners", prior to her death in 2017.

PEN is seriously concerned about the fact that senior government officials including Prime Minister Joseph Muscat are insisting on trying 34 libel cases against Daphne Caruana Galizia, which have now been assumed by her family.

"[125] In the 9–22 October 2020 edition, Private Eye criticised English PEN for not speaking out in defence of J. K. Rowling, after she faced online harassment following her comments about transgender people:[126][127][128] Thousands of Twitter users wish an author dead.