HILLEL ITALIE
Several authors have turned down awards and awards nominations from PEN America, citing unhappiness with the literary and free expression organization’s stance on the war in Gaza.
This week, PEN announced its long lists in categories ranging from the $75,000 Jean Stein Award for best book to the $10,000 PEN/Hemingway award for first novel. Authors who have asked for their names to be withdrawn include Jean Stein nominee Camonghne Felix, poetry finalist Eugenia Leigh and short story nominee Ghassan Zeineddine.
“I decided to decline this recognition and asked to be removed from the long list in solidarity with the ongoing protest of PEN’s continued normalization and denial of genocide,” Felix, author of the memoir “Dyscalculia,” wrote on X.
The awards are scheduled to be handed out during an April 29 ceremony in Manhattan, hosted by writer-comedian Jena Friedman. A PEN spokesperson said that nine out of 60 nominated
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