NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of writers, editors and publishers are to gather Thursday night for PEN America’s annual gala, hosted by Amber Ruffin and featuring a tribute to actor-publisher Sarah Jessica Parker.
Ruffin, the writer-comedian, will have a high-profile platform after she was disinvited from April’s White House Correspondents Association dinner. Ruffin is known for her blunt criticism of President Donald Trump, and the WHCA said it wanted the event to focus on journalism.
Soon after the association’s decision, PEN announced that Ruffin had agreed to preside over its signature event, a dinner-fundraiser held at the American Museum of Natural History.
“She is truly emblematic of the talented creators who we need on stages and in writers’ rooms during a time of unprecedented censorship in this country,” PEN co-interim CEO Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf said at the time.
PEN itself, the century-old free expression organization, is still recovering from a tumultuous 2024. Allegations that leadership was reluctant to criticize Israel’s invasion of Gaza and slow to respond to the suffering of Palestinians, including Palestinian writers and journalists, led so many writers to withdraw from PEN’s spring awards ceremony and World Voices festival that both were canceled. PEN CEO Suzanne Nossel departed at the end of the year; a permanent replacement has not yet been announced.
The awards night and World Voices returned this month, although with reminders of the ongoing war in Gaza. Several prize nominees withdrew from competition, including two of the five finalists for the $75,000 Jean Stein Book Award for a work of “originality, merit, and impact.” The daughters of Stein, the late author, editor and philanthropist, decided that the prize money would be donated to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and to Palestine Legal, a U.S.-based defense organization.
On Thursday, PEN will honor the imprisoned Egyptian poet and activist Galal El-Behairy with the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, given to dissidents who have been jailed. Members of his family will accept the award for him.
Parker is to receive the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, presented in previous years to Patti Smith, Robert Caro and Stephen Sondheim among others. Parker has been a longtime champion of books and literacy and runs the publishing imprint SJP Lit, where authors include Lucy Caldwell, Linda Grant and Elysha Chang.
Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth, a leading critic of Trump’s threats to cancel research funding at Columbia University and other schools, is this year’s winner of the PEN/Benenson Courage Award. PEN is giving its Business Visionary award to Macmillan CEO Jon Yaged.
