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Background
Norwegian PEN is the Norwegian division of International PEN, which was founded
in England in 1921. PEN is short for «Poets, Essayists and Novelists»
or «Poets, Editors and Novelists». Norwegian PEN was founded
in 1922.
The purpose of the organization was twofold: firstly to establish an international,
literary organization - the only global one one that still exists, secondly
to create an organization that could work and fight for authors´ and
other writers´ right to freedom of expression. This was prior
to international conventions on human rights that surfaced from the 1940s.
Today, the Nordic, German, Dutch, British, Spanish, Russian, Asian, African,
Australian and North American PEN centres are primarily focused on freedom
of expression, whereas the latin centres in Europe and America are
more focused on famous writers and literary prestige.
Norwegian PEN is responsible for the coordination of the Norwegian section
of the international Cities of Asylum-network You will find more information
in the "Cities of Asylum"-menue to the left.
Norwegian PEN also organizes several local meetings for members each year
with visiting, international writers like Amin Maalouf, Torgny Lindgren,
Salman Rushdie, Khalida Messaoudi and Anna Politkovskaja - the two last ones
risking their own lives in their fight for freedom of expression - as well
as seminars, the last one entitled "Freedom of Expression and Selfcensorship
after 11. September 2001. You will find reports from some of these seminars
under the "meetings and seminars" menue to the left.
We currently have 252 members among Norwegian writers, publishers, editors and journalists.
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