Naomi Klein, Hisham Matar, Maaza Mengiste and More Have Withdrawn From the PEN World Voices Festival

 https://lithub.com/naomi-klein-isabella-hammad-maaza-mengiste-and-more-have-withdrawn-from-the-pen-world-voices-festival/

Naomi Klein, Michelle Alexander, Hisham Matar, Isabella Hammad, Maaza Mengiste, Zaina Arafat, and Susan Muaddi Darraj are among the writers who have signed a damning open letter to PEN America in which they announce their decision not to participate in this year’s PEN World Voices Festival due to the organization’s inadequate response to the unfolding genocide in Gaza.

“In the context of Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza,” the letter reads, “we believe that PEN America has betrayed the organization’s professed commitment to peace and equality for all, and to freedom and security for writers everywhere.” The letter goes on to detail the various ways in which PEN America has failed Palestinian writers and journalists—as well as their allies in the United States—since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, and take the organization to task for declining “to join other leading human rights organizations and United Nations officials in the demands for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”

One of the world’s most high profile literary events, and the centerpiece of PEN America’s annual programming, the PEN World Voices Festival is a weeklong celebration of international literature which has taken place in New York and Los Angeles each April/May since 2005. Its 20th incarnation is likely to be the rockiest on record, however, as the past three months have seen the 102-year-old free expression organization mired in controversy.