The PEN America Literary Awards Are Canceled. The Writers Know Why.

Authors are staging their own protest amid an extraordinary week of action against Israel’s occupation of Gaza. In solidarity with a free Palestine, a group of 29 writers and translators sent a letter of refusal to the executive board and trustees of PEN America on April 17, withdrawing from the free-speech organization’s annual Literary Awards, resulting in a cancellation of the ceremony entirely. “We cannot, in good faith, align with an...