Maureen Freely voted English PEN president

Author, journalist, translator and academic Maureen Freely has been voted English PEN’s new president.

Freely, who has worked closely with the charity for the past 15 years, was elected by its members to take on the role.

English PEN’s board of trustees congratulated Freely on her appointment, saying:  “As a longstanding, committed PEN member, Maureen brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the role, and we very much look forward to working with her.”

Freely commented: “English PEN has been amazingly effective in recent years.  It has worked with like-minded organisations to reform libel law, bring clarity to the debate on press reform, and champion the rights and needs of writers in the digital age.  In addition to engaging with schools and care homes, refugee centres and prisons, it has found new and innovative ways to support translation and world literature.  And as a founding member of the Free Word Centre, it has helped to create a genuinely free space for others sharing its aims…It is a great honour to have been elected president of English PEN, and I shall do my best to support its fine work.”

Freely is the author of seven novels, as well as non-fiction, and is professor in the department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick and the director of its writing  programme. She is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and chair of the Translators Association, having herself translated the work of Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk.