PEN America has cancelled what would have been the 20th edition of its World Voices Festival because of writers pulling out in protest at the organisation’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The festival was scheduled to take place May 8-11 in New York City and May 8-16 in Los Angeles.
PEN America points out that a central feature of the planned festival was to have featured multiple Palestinian writers, enabling them to speak not just about the war but about their own books and works. “We regret that this is not possible,” it said. “We are grateful and express our deep sadness to the dozens of writers who voiced their commitment to remain in events, traveling from around the country and the globe.”
Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, said: “PEN America exists to unite writers in defence of free expression. The premise of World Voices is to engage across wide chasms of worldview and belief, including fostering direct conversation between and among those who disagree profoundly. We share the anguish over the loss of life and devastation of the war.
“We are listening to our critics. Over the last seven months, we have consistently taken and will continue to take steps to strengthen the core of our work: to support writers and stand for free expression. We now face a campaign that casts our struggle to reflect complexity, uphold our identity as a big tent organization, and show fealty to our principles as a moral abdication. The perspective that engaging with those who hold a different point of view constitutes an impermissible act of legitimization negates the very possibility of dialogue. It also betrays the essence of PEN’s charter and mission to dispel hatreds and engage writers and literature as a catalyst for empathy and a bridge toward common ground.”
Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, PEN America’s Literary Programming chief officer, said: “We are committed to hosting a Town Hall convening in the near future to create a space to wrestle with the issues gripping the literary community and our own organization. We will welcome all of those slated to be Festival participants as well as PEN America members to be part of this event, and will share details on that soon.”
