PEN Canada is one of the 144 centres of International PEN. Founded in 1926, it has a membership of over 1,000 writers and supporters who campaign on behalf of writers around the world who are persecuted, imprisoned and exiled for exercising their right to freedom of expression.
Since the founding, various PEN Centers around the world have campaigned on behalf of such acclaimed writers as Czech playwright Václav Havel, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, novelist Salman Rushdie and Turkey’s 2006 Nobel laureate in literature, Orhan Pamuk. PEN Canada is a member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange network.
Over the years, PEN Canada membership has included many of the leading figures in the Canadian literary and cultural establishment, including Margaret Atwood, Adrienne Clarkson, John Ralston Saul, David Cronenberg and Yann Martel.
Read more about PEN Canada: Programs, Awards and Fellowships, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words pen and/or canada:
“He loved to sit silent in a corner of his club and listen to the loud chattering of politicians, and to think how they all were in his power—how he could smite the loudest of them, were it worth his while to raise his pen for such a purpose.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“I fear that I have not got much to say about Canada, not having seen much; what I got by going to Canada was a cold.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)