Arundhati Roy wins the PEN Pinter prize 2024

June 27: Arundhati Roy has been awarded the PEN Pinter Prize 2024, an annual award which was set up in 2009 by English PEN in memory of Nobel laureate playwright Harold Pinter. On October 10, 2024, Roy will be awarded the prize in a ceremony that the British Library will be co-hosting. The co-winner of the award, a 'Writer of Courage' whom Roy chose from a shortlist, will also be declared.

This announcement comes two weeks after the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi approved the writer's prosecution under the UAPA for the remarks she made on Kashmir, during a 2010 conference. Since then, more than 200 Indian scholars, activists, journalists as well as farm and labour unions, signed an open letter urging the government to withdraw the decision. There has been criticism both domestically and internationally over the recent granting of sanctions to prosecute Roy and her co-accused former lecturer Sheikh Showkat Hussain.

Watch here: In conversation with Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves regarding Arundhati Roy's prosecution under UAPA

The prize is bestowed each year to a writer who, in the words of the late Harold Pinter's Nobel speech, casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze on the world and shows a “fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies”.

Khalid Abdalla, who was part of the jury that made the decision, said,

“Arundhati Roy is a luminous voice of freedom and justice whose words have come with fierce clarity and determination for almost thirty years now."

Chair of English PEN Ruth Borthwick, who was also on the jury, said “Roy tells urgent stories of injustice with wit and beauty. While India remains an important focus, she is truly an internationalist thinker, and her powerful voice is not to be silenced.” Additionally, the judges praised Roy for her “incisive commentary on issues ranging from environmental degradation to human rights abuses”. Roy was also awarded the 1997 Booker Prize for The God of Small Things.

After winning the prize, Roy said:

“I wish Harold Pinter were with us today to write about the almost incomprehensible turn the world is taking. Since he isn’t, some of us must do our utmost to try to fill his shoes.”

Salman Rushdie, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Margaret Atwood, and Malorie Blackman are among the previous PEN Pinter Prize recipients. Michael Rosen won the prize in 2023 for a body of work that the judges deemed to be a "lesson in humanity" and "fearless."

Also read: Delhi LG Sanctions The Prosecution Of Author Arundhati Roy Under UAPA

Inputs: Agencies

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