Arundhati Roy wins PEN Pinter Prize 2024

In April 2024, Arundhati Roy, renowned author and winner of the Booker Prize for her debut novel, The God of Small Things, was chosen to receive the PEN Pinter Prize 2024, as decided by the judges: Chair of English PEN, Ruth Borthwick; actor and activist, Khalid Abdalla; and writer and musician, Roger Robinson.

Commenting on Roy's selection for the prize, Khalid Abdalla noted, "Arundhati Roy is a luminous voice of freedom and justice whose words have come with fierce clarity and determination for almost thirty years now [...] This year, as the world faces the deep histories that have created this moment in Gaza, our need for writers who are 'unflinching and unswerving' has been immense. In honouring Arundhati Roy this year, we are celebrating both the dignity of her body of work and the timeliness of her words, that arrive with the depth of her craft exactly when we need them most."

Read more

Nobody writes like Arundhati Roy

This award is meant to be shared with a Writer of Courage, which PEN describes as a 'writer who is active in defence of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty'. On October 10, at an event co-hosted by the British Library, she will be receiving this award; the co-winner of this award, as selected by Arundhati Roy, will also be revealed then. 

The PEN Pinter prize is awarded annually to a writer of outstanding literary merit residing in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, or the Commonwealth. It was first established in 2009, by the charity, English PEN, in memory of Nobel-Laureate playwright Harold Pinter. Their goal is described as defending freedom of expression and celebrating literature. In the words of Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize in Literature speech, it 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".

Syeda Erum Noor is devoted to learning about the craft of writing and is an avid reader who can talk endlessly about the magic of books. Reach her at @syedaerumnoorwrites.