{"id":561,"date":"2021-10-05T19:19:59","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T16:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pen-greece.org\/?p=561"},"modified":"2024-06-25T23:56:19","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T20:56:19","slug":"literature-knows-no-frontiers-celebrating-100-years-of-pen-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pen-greece.org\/en\/literature-knows-no-frontiers-celebrating-100-years-of-pen-international\/","title":{"rendered":"PEN International celebrated 100 years of promoting literature and defending freedom of expression"},"content":{"rendered":"

A centenary toast for the mission of PEN<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

On 5th October 1921, in a clear reaction to the evils of the first world war, English writer, playwright and poet Catharine Dawson Scott invited writers from London to the first PEN dinner. The invitation had both a spirit of international literary fraternity and a clear feminist perspective: \u00ab London has no centre where well-known writers of both sexes can meet socially, no place where distinguished visitors from abroad can hope to find them. As a dinner-club would supply this need, it is proposed to start one. \u00bb John Galsworthy, the first president of PEN (and the first major donor), lifted his glass to writers from all the corners of the world and said: \u00abWe writers are in some sort trustees for human nature. If we are narrow and prejudiced, we harm the human race. And the better we know each other, the greater the chance of human happiness in a world not, as yet, too happy. \u00bb<\/span><\/p>\n

A hundred years later, at the closing ceremony of the\u00a087th<\/sup>\u00a0PEN International Centenary Congress<\/a>,<\/strong> <\/span>the newly elected President of PEN International, Kurdish writer and lawyer\u00a0Burhan S\u00f6nmez,<\/a>\u00a0raised his glass and repeated exactly the same words, just adding: \u00abSo we have a mission! Congratulations to all in our centenary!\u00bb<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

A celebration of radical equality among literatures<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Centenary Congress, showcased the commitment of PEN to promote all literatures without exception \u2014without frontiers, in line with the principles and spirit of the PEN Charter. Among others, the Assembly of Delegates elected Burhan S\u00f6nmez as president of PEN International \u2014just a few minutes before PEN Tibet and PEN Chiapas thanked American-Mexican author Jennifer Clement for her six years\u2019 presidency of PEN International. States\u2019 frontiers, clearly, are unknown to literature.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Assembly welcomed, together with the new PEN Malta, a new PEN Quechua, the third PEN Centre devoted to authors in the indigenous literatures of the Americas. It also gave the floor to writers, former PEN\u2019s cases and activists who spoke about PEN\u2019s history and key moments, among them writer Ngugi wa Thiong\u2019o, who reminded us that the debates at the 34th<\/sup>\u00a0PEN International Congress were the beginning of a thought process which would lead him to embrace the use of G\u0129k\u0169y\u0169, his mother tongue, as the language of his creative imagination. \u00abMost of these (Ngugi\u2019s mentions three novels, one epic, two plays and several stories for children) have been translated into numerous world languages, which mean that my mother tongue, G\u0129k\u0169y\u0169, an African Language, is in conversation with other languages of the earth…I have faced prison, and exile and even death threats for my stand. But I don\u2019t wish it otherwise. Thank you PEN, \u00bb Ngugi said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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