PEN America cancels awards ceremony following authors' Gaza boycott

PEN America has cancelled its 2024 awards ceremony after dozens of writers withdrew in protest of the organisation’s response to the Gaza conflict, Publishers Weekly has reported.

Out of the 61 authors and translators nominated for a prize, 28 withdrew their works from consideration, according to a PEN America statement. Nine of the 10 authors nominated for the organisation’s top prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, withdrew their books.

The ceremony was scheduled to take place in New York on 29th April. The $75,000 prize accompanying the PEN/Stein award will now be donated to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund at the direction of the Literary Estate of Jean Stein.

In a collective statement, Stein’s daughters – Katrina and Wendy vanden Heuvel – and literary agent Bill Clegg said that Stein was "a passionate advocate for Palestinian rights who published, supported, and celebrated Palestinian writers and visual artists”. They added that "while she established the PEN America award in her name to bring attention to and provide meaningful support to writers of the highest literary achievement, we know she would have respected the stance and sacrifice of the writers who have withdrawn from contention this year".

The boycott comes after months of mounting criticism over PEN America’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Pen America said that the five finalists and winning titles for each of the 20 plus awards had been selected before the mass withdrawals. As a result, PEN continued, the two winners who remained under consideration for their awards will receive their cash prizes.

Those include Countries of Origin by Javier Fuentes (Pantheon), which was chosen to win the $10,000 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer by the Late Tomas Tranströmer, translated from Swedish by Patty Crane (Copper Canyon Press), which was chosen to win the $3,000 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.

For the cash prizes that cannot be conferred, decisions on how to allocate the funds “will be made on a case-by-case basis, according to the specifications of each award contract and the wishes of our generous award underwriters”, the organisers said.

PEN America literary programming chief officer Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf said in a statement: “We greatly respect that writers have followed their consciences, whether they chose to remain as nominees in their respective categories or not.

“We regret that this unprecedented situation has taken away the spotlight from the extraordinary work selected by esteemed, insightful and hard-working judges across all categories. As an organisation dedicated to freedom of expression and writers, our commitment to recognising and honouring outstanding authors and the literary community is steadfast.”

In a statement last week, PEN America board president Jennifer Finney Boylan committed to conducting a "review" of PEN’s work "going back a decade."