Vasyl Stus Freedom to Write Award Ceremony

May 11, 2005 at 6:30 pm
Location: Fanueil Hall
Boston, MA

PEN New England to Honor Jailed Saudi Poet

Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Lewis to address crowd at Faneuil Hall

The Freedom-to-Write Committee of PEN New England has announced that the 2005 Vasyl Stus Freedom-to-Write Award will be presented to the Saudi Arabian poet, editor, and novelist Ali Al-Domaini.

The award will be presented on Wednesday, May 11, 2005, 6:30 p.m., at Boston's storied Faneuil Hall.

Anthony Lewis, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and former New York Times columnist, will deliver the keynote address. Lewis, whose books include Gideon's Trumpet and Make No Law, has been a longtime advocate for civil rights and freedom of expression.

The Vasyl Stus Award recognizes a writer who has been persecuted for the peaceful expression of his or her views, and whose courage in the face of censorship and oppression has been exemplary. The award is named in honor of Stus, the leading Ukrainian poet of his generation, who was the last Ukrainian poet to die in the Soviet gulag.

This year's award winner, Ali Al-Domaini, has been detained without trial, along with two other constitutional reformists, since March of 2004 for criticizing the slowness of official human rights initiatives in Saudi Arabia. Long before his arrest, his works—three books of poems and a novel—were banned in his native country. Appreciation and affection for his work, widespread among readers in Saudi Arabia, is the result of books smuggled into the country, published in Lebanon and Bahrain.

The award ceremony at Faneuil Hall is free and open to the public. Known as the "Cradle of Liberty" because it was the site of patriotic orations during the American Revolution, Faneuil Hall will serve as a potent backdrop for PEN’s celebration of free expression in the face of tyranny.