Writer and Booker Prize-winner Arundhati Roy has been honoured with the prestigious Pen Pinter Prize 2024 for her “unflinching and unswerving” writings. The prize, established in 2009 by the charity English PEN, defends freedom of expression and celebrates literature in memory of Nobel-Laureate playwright Harold Pinter. English PEN chair Ruth Borthwick said Roy told “urgent stories of injustice with wit and beauty.” Pointing out that Roy is truly an internationalist thinker, writing on human rights and other issues, Borthwick said that India is an important focus in her work and “her powerful voice is not to be silenced.”
“I am delighted to accept the PEN Pinter prize. I wish Harold Pinter were with us today to write about the almost incomprehensible turn the world is taking. Since he isn’t, some of us must do our utmost to try to fill his shoes,” the 62-year-old Roy, who is facing prosecution over comments on Kashmir made in 2010, said.
