The acclaimed Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature (Allen & Unwin, 2009) has won the Special Award at the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards. Presented by Premier Kristina Keneally on May 17th, the award recognises a publication that falls outside of the other Award categories.
The judges' comments on the anthology noted that it “would be an invaluable resource for students of Australian literature, but is sufficiently broad and entertaining to be of broad general interest.”
Former Sydney PEN president Nick Jose was the general editor of this landmark anthology, and a percentage of its sales are donated to PEN. For more information about the book and how you can order your copy, visit here.
ICPC has worked with Sydney PEN to edit the Spring 2010 issue of its journal of writing. The issue features English translations of poetry and prose by currently imprisoned Chinese writers. Download the issue here.
Early this year, Sydney PEN publically supported Frank Moorhouse’s individual withdrawal from a tour of China arranged by DFAT. We also underlined our support for the decision of other Australian writers to deliberately undertake the tour. Writers who engage with and in countries that have troubled relationships with freedom of expression describe how this can be a productive, educative, obstructive and frustrating experience all at once. Frank Moorhouse writes in this month’s Australian Literary Review about the circumstances and questions surrounding his decision – read his essay here.
Canadian author and Founding President of PEN Canada, Margaret Atwood recently received the American PEN Literary Service Award. Her acceptance speech reflects on the nature of the human voice and the complexity of censoring the “shadows” in that voice. Read it here at The Daily Beast.
Photo courtesy of Esquire.com
Vietnamese-Australian writer Nam Le, who lives between Melbourne and the United States, has shared the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story with established American author Edward P. Jones. The Award is given annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.
Asia Writes is a blog run from the Philippines, keeping us in touch with literary news from Asia.
PEN members may also be interested in visiting the Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership, a fantastic news and communication network within the region.
Chinese poet, former Honorary Director and Board member of Independent Chinese PEN Centre, Liao Yiwu was prevented in March from attending the Cologne Literature Festival. After three days' house arrest, however, Liao Yiwu was released and prepared a letter for the Festival in his absence.
Well known by his poems, books and film, Liao Yiwu undertook four years in prison from 1990-1994. Text Publishing will be releasing his next book this year.
Sydney PEN is disturbed by reports of the arrest of an Egyptian publisher, Ahmed Mahanna, following his release of a book praising the former UN nuclear agency head and Nobel Prize winning Mohamed ElBaradei. As yet unconfirmed by International PEN, the arrest was reported in The Guardian and has been criticised by ElBaradei himself.
Pyrmont Village community website is launching an open essay competition focussed on highlighting everyday Australians' views about the NSW State Government's existing and proposed censorship of the internet.
A distinguished judging panel will award $2, 000 cash to an essayist whose work achieves the objectives of the prize. Entries close June 7, 2010.
For more details and an entry form, visit the competition website.
We proudly "go live" with our new website this March, providing members with a resource for news and events, and visitors with information about our work. We will also be building a Media Centre to archive our releases and media coverage, and in the coming month will add a membership and donation module through which all future memberships and renewals will be processed.
Sydney PEN thanks the team at Inventive Labs, led by Virginia Murdoch, for their insight, patience and design vision as creators of this site.
We would also like to acknowledged the pro-bono host of our previous site, BarNet, which was also a part of the early design process.
