As a global community, we face enormous challenges in every aspect of our lives right now. At English PEN, our primary aim is to ensure the safety of all our members, supporters, volunteers, staff and guests. Therefore, it is with great sadness we have decided to postpone or cancel all our events at least until 30 April 2020 following the latest public health advice from the government.
This includes the following:
- Displaced memories: recollection and exile at the British Museum on 20 March
- Vigil for Ahmed Mansoor at the UAE Embassy on 25 March
- Vigil for writers at risk at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia on 27 March
- Rebecca Solnit in conversation at Tyneside Cinema on 31 March
- Liberating Languages at the Free Word Centre on 6 April
- No frontiers: celebrating writing in translation at the British Museum on 17 April
If you’ve booked a ticket for any of these events, please contact the venue to arrange a refund.
We’ll do everything we can to either reschedule or find digital ways to bring you the brilliant events we had planned, and we’ll be working closely with our friends and partners to keep our work going as best we can during these difficult times.
What we’re doing now
At the heart of PEN is a community of writers and readers whose love for the written word transcends borders and boundaries. Our commitment to PEN’s values remains as strong as ever and we’ll do whatever we can to support our community in the coming weeks and months. We’ll announce more details on this soon.
Additionally, PEN Translates, our award to help UK publishers meet the costs of translating new works into English, will open for submissions from 1 April as planned.