I withdrew my work from consideration for the Jean Stein Award. I can't align myself w/ a human rights org that waits 5 months to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, while platforming zionists & pretending there's nuance to genocide.
✊🏽🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
✊🏽Writers Against the War on Gaza
✊🏽PEN America United

Following Camonghne Felix the cascade of withdrawals from the PEN awards is not in vain. What is an award worth when a good number of the best identified books are no longer in the running? It speaks loud when many of the writers together have made this choice.

The most horrifying thing I’ve read.

In solidarity with the writers boycotting the PEN America World Voices Festival; PEN America United; Writers Against the War on Gaza; and all the other writers who have declined PEN awards this week––

In just the last few days, several authors have withdrawn their books from PEN awards consideration.
lithub.com/withdrawals-an…

🧵On Monday, 4/8/24, after much delay and little advance communication, PEN America announced the long lists for its 2024 literary awards. This included the PEN America Translation Prize, for which we, Larissa Kyzer, Hanna Leliv, Parisa Saranj, and Jenna Tang, were judges.

The writer and revolutionary Ghassan Kanafani was born on this date, April 9, in 1936. Kanafani shares that birthday with Leila Khaled, who was born in Haifa eight years later, and became a fellow exile in 1948. They both eventually joined the PFLP.

Last Tuesday I found out that my book Dyscalculia was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein award. I decided to decline this recognition and asked to be removed from the longlist in solidarity with the ongoing protest of PEN's continued normalization and denial of genocide.

Every word represents a choice. “Terrorist” tells us where the failing leadership of PEN America has chosen to stand—with the American government, which continues to justify & to fund Israel’s genocidal onslaught on Gaza, not with PEN International, which called for a ceasefire on Oct 25.

.@PENAmerica calls again for ceasefire, months after PEN International and peers, notes 1000 Israelis killed, but won't quantify 33,000 Palestinians.

History began w/'terrorist attack' and 'murder.' This 'human rights' group won't say occupation, apartheid, siege, Nakba, ICJ or genocide.

Glory to our martyrs.

you have known so much peace.. that you associate your home shaking with trains and washing machines. you have no idea how much peace you have

As Israel’s war becomes politically toxic, The New York Times has ramped up its criticism of Netanyahu—while depicting Biden as increasingly “frustrated.”

This is a cynical attempt to save face, by co-opting anti-war sentiment and erasing structural critique of US-Israeli imperialism. 🧵

SHIREEN LIVES: Today would have been the 53rd birthday of Shireen Abu Akleh, whose prolific, fearless journalism was a staple in all Palestinian and Arab households.

🚨New WAWOG Bulletin is OUT🚨 In this issue, we explore the 'unwavering solidarity' that has always existed between the Black liberation movement and the Palestinian struggle.

MOVEMENT WIN: 100+ cultural organizations have endorsed the 2004 call of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) over the past six months. Join us.

The images out of Gaza today are the worst I’ve ever seen. How are they getting worse?

PEN America United PEN America As PEN America’s reputation deteriorates, The Intercept publishes a damning investigation of turmoil inside the organization. As the piece also shows, staffers pleaded with Suzanne Nossel & @jennyboylan to cancel their propaganda trip to Israel during the genocide. They did not.