Golden Pen Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature

John Berger wins 2009 Golden PEN Award

On Tuesday 1 December 2009 English PEN announced the winner of the Golden PEN Award as John Berger. The award is given annually to an accomplished writer whose body of work has had a profound impact on readers and who is held in high regard by fellow writers and the literary community. It is also important that the recipient's ethos is consistent with, and supportive of, the values upheld by English PEN.

The winner is elected by the Trustees of English PEN, who represent a membership of more than one thousand writers and literary professionals. The award will be presented to Berger, along with a golden pen and a cheque for £1,000, at the English PEN Christmas Party on Monday 7 December at the Artworker's Guild in London.

An English art critic, novelist, painter and author, Berger is best known for his novel G., which won the 1972 Booker Prize, and for his essays on art criticism Ways of Seeing. His most recent books are Why Look at Animals? a collection of essays, where Berger analyses the marginalisation of animals, and Mural, a translation along with Rema Hammami of Mahmoud Darwish's epic masterpiece.

Lisa Appignanesi, President of English PEN said: "I am delighted that the Golden PEN 2009 is to be awarded to John Berger. His novels have enlivened readers of fiction for generations. So, too, have his luminous essays, which bring the far as near as your hand: they make us look afresh at the world, at animals, at politics, at all our relations. His Ways of Seeing changed the course of art criticism and practice, alike. His work in film and theatre, perhaps most notably with Complicite, bears as unique an imprint as his poems, drawings, and translations. Throughout, his passion for justice shines: most recently that has taken him into 'the world's largest waiting room' which is the West Bank, and 'the world's largest prison', Gaza.  I can think of no better life in writing and no writer who does more honour to the Golden PEN than does John Berger by accepting it."  

Geoff Dyer, who will deliver the encomium at the prizegiving commented: "I can think of no worthier recipient of the Golden PEN 2009 Award: in the unparalleled range of his work, in his extraordinary originality and innovation, in his unflagging commitment and limitless compassion, John Berger is exemplary both as a writer and as a human being."

You can view photos from this event on Flickr

Previous winners include:

2008 - JG Ballard
2007 - Josephine Pullein-Thompson

2006 - Michael Holroyd

2005 - Jan Morris

2004 - Nina Bawden

2003 - Michael Frayn

2002 - Doris Lessing

2001 - Harold Pinter
2000 - Francis King
1999 - Penelope Fitzgerald
1998 - Muriel Spark
1997 - Iris Murdoch
1996 - William Cooper
1995 - Stephen Spender
1994 - V. S. Pritchett
1993 - Sybille Bedford