NEW YORK (AP) — Sarah Jessica Parker will be this year’s recipient of PEN America’s “Literary Service Award.” The “Sex and the City” star, a longtime advocate for reading and literacy, will be honored May 15 at the free expression organization’s annual spring gala.
Jon Yaged, CEO of Macmillan Publishers, will receive the “Business Visionary Award.”
Parker has been involved in numerous literary projects, whether as founder of her own publishing imprint or serving as executive producer of the anti-book banning documentary “The Librarians,” which premiered last month at the Sundance Film Festival.
The PEN/Audible Literary Service Award had previously been given to an “important writer” who has attracted a wide audience and “helped us understand the human condition,” with previous winners including Stephen Sondheim and Toni Morrison. The criteria is now “a writer or advocate who has served the literary community through their words or work.”
“We are now at a crisis point with books by underrepresented writers being pulled from school libraries and classrooms,” PEN co-CEO Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf said in a statement released Friday. “Sarah Jessica Parker is pushing back against these bans as an indispensable defender of the freedom to read and by shining a light on exceptional new voices of American contemporary literature through her publishing imprint SJP Lit.”
As head of Macmillan, Yaged publishes authors ranging from Sally Rooney and Kristin Hannah to S.A. Cosby and Michael Wolff. The business visionary award is given for “outstanding leadership” that “embraces the power of literature to shape democratic and humane values.”
PEN co-CEO Summer Lopez praised Yaged for his “eloquence and force” in opposing book bans and other restrictions.
“For decades, Jon has been a stalwart defender of the right to read and a champion of ensuring publishing represents diverse voices and perspectives, understanding the fundamental role of these values in a democratic society,” Lopez said in a statement. “We are honored to give him the spotlight as a ‘visionary’ for his big-hearted, expansive, and principled approach to literary publishing.”
A former Macmillan CEO, John Sargent, is among the previous winners of the business award, along with former publishing executives Markus Dohle of Penguin Random House, Michael Pietsch of Hachette Book Group and Caroline Reidy of Simon and Schuster.
