The free speech organization PEN America has cancelled its World Voices festival after several authors withdrew their participation over the non-profit’s response to Israel’s military attacks against Gaza.
The festival was scheduled to take place on 8 May in New York City and Los Angeles. A prominent group of writers including Naomi Klein, a Guardian columnist; Isabella Hammad; and Zaina Arafat signed an open letter to PEN America in March announcing their decision not to participate in this year’s festival.
The latest cancellation comes days after PEN America cancelled the 2024 edition of its annual awards ceremony after a significant portion of nominated authors withdrew from consideration for prizes.
In a statement shared with the Guardian, PEN America confirmed the cancellation of its World Voices festival. The statement said the decision was, in part, due to authors withdrawing from the program.
According to PEN America, several authors declined to participate given the organization’s stance toward Gaza while others faced “harsh attacks on social media and heavy demands to distance themselves from” the non-profit.
Some authors “expressed genuine fear” to the organization.
“As an organization that cares deeply about the freedom of writers to speak their conscience, we are concerned about any circumstance in which writers tell us they feel shut down, or that speaking their minds bears too much risk,” PEN America said, in part. “Amid this climate, it became impossible to mount the festival in keeping with the principles upon which it was founded 20 years ago.”
Several authors and literary groups have applauded the recent cancellation of the World Voices festival on social media.
The group Writers Against the War on Gaza called the cancellation a “win for the movement”.
“It is an indictment of PEN America’s leadership. And contrary to their statement, it’s a win for free expression, too,” the group said on X.
The New York Times bestselling author Daniel José Older praised the festival’s cancellation in a post on X.
“NO BUSINESS AS USUAL DURING A GENOCIDE! [PEN America] has continued to gaslight the entire literary world with their both-sidesing nonsense,” Older said, adding that the organization needed new leadership.
In its own post on X, the Palestine festival of literature described authors’ withdrawing from the World Voices festival as “an unprecedented act of solidarity with Palestinian writers”.
The group announced that it will host its own festival featuring writers from Gaza to “mark this collective action”.
A growing chorus of writers and translators have condemned PEN America for failing to strongly denounce what they call the genocide in Palestine and demand for a ceasefire following Israel’s attacks on the territory.
Israel launched its strikes on Gaza after the deadly 7 October attack by Hamas.
Twenty-eight out of 61 nominated authors and translators withdrew their books from consideration for PEN America’s annual award ceremony, according to a statement released on Monday.
Nine of 10 authors nominated for the PEN/Jean Stein book award also pulled out of consideration.
