Ethiopian born writer Lemn Sissay, has been awarded the 2019 PEN Pinter Prize for Literature, at a ceremony at the British Library in London, UK.
The PEN Pinter Prize, is an annual literary award, launched in 2009 by English PEN in honour of the late Nobel Literature Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, who had been a Vice President of English PEN and an active member of the International PEN Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC).
The award is given to a writer from Britain, the Republic of Ireland or the Commonwealth of outstanding literary merit who, in the words of Pinter’s Nobel speech (Art, Truth and Politics), casts an ‘unflinching, unswerving’ gaze upon the world and shows ‘a fierce, intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies. The winner must the author of a significant body of plays, poetry, or fiction of outstanding literary merit, written in English.
The prize which aims to defend readers and writers, whose freedom of expression is at risk, saw Ethiopian born, British author, Lemn Sissay, awarded the 2019 prize. Lemn Sissay is the Chancellor of the University of Manchester and the author of a body of critical literary works (fiction and nonfiction).
Previous winners include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Salman Rushdie, Raif Badawi, Margaret Atwood, Amy Liptrot, Henry Marsh, Mazen Darwish, Hanif Kureishi, Roberto Saviano, David Olusoga, Jenny Diski, Diana Athill, Alan Bennett and Sonali Deraniyagala.