After the quarrels at the writers’ association PEN, an alternative association is to be formed. Around 230 authors want to found PEN Berlin, as the journalist Deniz Yücel announced on Twitter on Tuesday.
After the quarrels at the writers’ association PEN, an alternative association is to be formed. Around 230 authors want to found PEN Berlin, as the journalist Deniz Yücel announced on Twitter on Tuesday.
The supporters include Daniel Kehlmann (“Tyll”), Christian Kracht (“Eurotrash”) and Eva Menasse (“Dunkelblum”). Several media had previously reported on the project. The association is to be founded on Friday in the Berlin Literature House.
“We want a new PEN,” it said on the website. «A contemporary and diverse PEN, in which writers and translators of all literary and journalistic genres who write in German or live in Germany come together.» A new PEN is needed that “denounces grievances together and regardless of origin and attitude and helps those whose freedom of expression is threatened”.
Recently there had been controversy about the writers’ association PEN-Zentrum Deutschland, of which Yücel was president for several months. For example, there was a dispute not only about statements by Yücel, who had called for a no-fly zone in Ukraine, but above all about the management style on the board.
Although a motion to vote Yücel out of office failed, he surprisingly resigned from office in mid-May. “I don’t want to be a figurehead for this bratwurst stand,” the 48-year-old said at the time. The majority of the members are “important and self-portrayal” who have hijacked the association and for the persecuted authors are only accessories. There are more than 140 writers’ associations worldwide, united in the international PEN. The three letters stand for the words Poets, Essayists and Novelists.
