Arundhati Roy Awarded 2024 PEN Pinter Prize
Author, activist and Indian political commentator Arundhati Roy has been awarded the prestigious PEN Pinter Prize 2024. She will receive the honour at a ceremony co-hosted by the British Library on October 10, 2024, where she is scheduled to deliver an address, said a statement.
The award will be shared with a Writer of Courage, an individual recognised for defending freedom of expression often at great personal risk. Roy will select the co-winner from a shortlist of cases supported by English PEN, with the announcement to be made during the event.
Roy was chosen as the 2024 PEN Pinter Prize winner in April by a panel of judges including Ruth Borthwick, Chair of English PEN; actor and activist Khalid Abdalla; and writer and musician Roger Robinson.
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Roy is renowned for her poignant storytelling and incisive social commentary. She gained international fame with her debut novel, The God of Small Things (1997), which won the Man Booker Prize. Her other notable works include The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017), The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2002), and Field Notes on Democracy (2009). Roy’s writing spans both fiction and non-fiction, often addressing themes of social justice, environmental issues, and human rights.
In addition to the Booker Prize, she has received numerous accolades, including the Sydney Peace Prize (2004) and the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize (2002). Roy is also a powerful voice in contemporary literature and global human rights discourse.
Ruth Borthwick praised Roy, saying, “Our congratulations to Arundhati Roy on winning the PEN Pinter Prize 2024. Roy tells urgent stories of injustice with wit and beauty. While India remains an important focus, she is truly an internationalist thinker, and her powerful voice is not to be silenced.”
Khalid Abdalla highlighted Roy’s enduring impact: “Arundhati Roy is a luminous voice of freedom and justice whose words have come with fierce clarity and determination for almost thirty years now. Her books, her writings, and the spirit with which she lives her life have been a lodestar through many crises and the darkness our world has faced since her first book, The God of Small Things.”
Roger Robinson added, “Arundhati Roy was the unanimous choice for this prestigious award, a testament to her unparalleled contribution to literature. Her vast body of work, encompassing both fiction and non-fiction, has captivated readers worldwide and consistently focused on themes of social justice. Roy’s incisive commentary on issues ranging from environmental degradation to human rights abuses demonstrates her commitment to advocating for the marginalized and challenging the status quo.”
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Upon receiving the award, Roy expressed her gratitude: “I am delighted to accept the PEN Pinter Prize. I wish Harold Pinter were with us today to write about the almost incomprehensible turn the world is taking. Since he isn’t, some of us must do our utmost to try to fill his shoes.”
Established in 2009 by English PEN, the PEN Pinter Prize honors the memory of Nobel-Laureate playwright Harold Pinter. The prize is awarded annually to a writer of outstanding literary merit from the UK, Republic of Ireland, or Commonwealth who, in Pinter’s Nobel Prize speech, casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze upon the world and shows a “fierce intellectual determination…to define the real truth of our lives and our societies.”
The PEN Pinter Prize is supported by Faber and Ruth Maxted’s generosity.
