During the annual PEN International congress, with delegates from around the world gathered in Quebec City last week, renowned Mexican writer Jennifer Clement was elected as the first female president of the organisation.
Canadian writer, John Ralston Saul steps down as president of PEN International after six years after the election of Jennifer Clement. Clement, a Mexican-American writer, is the first woman to be elected as leader of PEN International.
PEN International is a is a worldwide association of writers, editors and journalists with over 100 autonomous centres around the world – including two in South Africa. Among other things, the organisation campaigns for freedom of expression, understood as the right to have your voice heard, and is the oldest human rights organisation in the world. PEN originally stood for “Poets, Essayists and Novelists,” but now includes writers of any form of literature, such as journalists and historians.
The PEN charter states: “Literature knows no frontiers and must remain common currency among people in spite of political or international upheavals.” Read the complete charter.
Jennifer Clement of PEN Mexico: 1st women president of PEN International after nearly 100 yrs, 31 men #81PENCongress pic.twitter.com/9ACn6lBSFN
— Dru Menaker (@drumenaker) October 15, 2015
Clement, the new PEN president, grew up in Mexico after which she studied in New York, Paris and Maine. She was president of PEN Mexico from 2009 – 2012 and focused specifically on the disappearance and killing of journalists. She is the author of three novels, several books of poetry and a memoir. Her work has been translated into 24 languages.
Ladydi Garcia Martínez is fierce, funny and smart. She was born into a world where being a girl is a dangerous thing. In the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, women must fend for themselves, as their men have left to seek opportunities elsewhere. Here in the shadow of the drug war, bodies turn up on the outskirts of the village to be taken back to the earth by scorpions and snakes. School is held sporadically, when a volunteer can be coerced away from the big city for a semester. In Guerrero the drug lords are kings, and mothers disguise their daughters as sons, or when that fails they “make them ugly” – cropping their hair, blackening their teeth- anything to protect them from the rapacious grasp of the cartels. And when the black SUVs roll through town, Ladydi and her friends burrow into holes in their backyards like animals, tucked safely out of sight.
Read an excerpt from Prayers for the Stolen:
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Watch an interview with Clement in which she discusses the influence of her work with PEN on her writing, the research for Prayers for the Stolen and writing as an act of expression:
Click here to view the embedded video.
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Book details
- Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement
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EAN: 9780804138802
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Image courtesy of PEN International