Zimbabwean novelist, Tsitsi Dangarembga, will be awarded the 2021 PEN Award for Freedom of Expression on the 13th of January 2021. The award is being given to Tsitsi Dangarembga for her “remarkable work in fighting for freedom of expression.”
In July 2020, days after Tsitsi Dangarembga was longlisted for the Booker Prize, she was arrested while protesting by the Zimbabwean Republic Police (ZRP) in Borrowdale for carrying a placard demanding the release of investigative journalist, Hopewell Chin’ono.
Dangaremgba’s arrest last year sparked widespread social media outrage from Ake Festival, the Booker Prize Foundation, Tsitsi’s publisher Faber & Faber, Abantu, English Pen, and others calling for her immediate release.
Dangaremgba’s novel, This Mournable Body, was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. She is also a dedicated activist, and the founding member of PEN Zimbabwe.
The award was formerly known as the Oxfam Novib/ PEN Award for Freedom of Expression. It is given annually to writers who continue to work for freedom of expression in the face of persecution since 2005.
Last year’s prize was awarded to Dr Stella Nyanzi, the Ugandan academic and poet, who was serving a jail term at the time for criticizing Yoweri Museveni, who had been president of Uganda for 33 years.
This award ceremony will be part of the opening events of the online Winternachten International Literature Festival The Hague. The award ceremony will be presided over by PEN International President and writer Jennifer Clement. The festival and award ceremony will be live-streamed on January 13 2021 from 8:30 to 10:00 pm CET.
Previous winners of the Oxfam Novib/PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression include the Cameroonian journalist Enoh Meyomesse, the Eritrean poet Amanuel Asrat, the Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, the Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, and the Honduran activist Dina Meza.
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