Poet, performer playwright, artist and broadcaster Lemn Sissay won the PEN Pinter Prize, which was established in 2009 by English PEN to defend freedom of expression and celebrate literature. The prize is given annually to a writer of outstanding literary merit resident in the U.K., the Republic of Ireland or the Commonwealth who, in the words of Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize in Literature 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."
Sissay will receive the award October 10 at the British Library, where he will deliver an address. He will also announce his co-winner, the International Writer of Courage 2019, selected from a shortlist of international cases supported by English PEN. The recipient will be an international writer who is active in defense of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty.
"In his every work, Lemn Sissay returns to the underworld he inhabited as an unclaimed child," said Maureen Freely, chair of English PEN and one of the judges. "From his sorrows, he forges beautiful words and a thousand reasons to live and love. On the page and on the stage, online or at the Foundling Museum, this is an Orpheus who never stops singing."
Sissay, who was awarded an MBE for services to literature by Queen Elizabeth II, commented: "I met Harold Pinter when I was 36. We were on stage at the Royal Court. I was too intimidated or self-conscious to speak to him. And so I will now. Thank you. What I like about this award is that it is from a great writer and a great organization. I accept it as a sign that I should continue. All I have is what I leave behind. All I am is what I do." His memoir, My Name Is Why, will be published by Canongate Books in August.