PEN Mexico Prize 2016 to ICORN

The announcement stated: “PEN Mexico is happy to announce the PEN Mexico Prize 2016 for ICORN (The International Cities of Refuge Network). Through this award, PEN Mexico honours an organization that has already provided shelter to more than 130 persecuted writers and artists in fifty cities around the globe and exemplifies a profound humanist ideal.” 

The award ceremony will be held at the Casa de Refugio in Mexico City in the autumn.

Chris Gribble, Chair of the ICORN Board says:

On behalf of the Board of ICORN, our Administration Center in Stavanger and Member Cities across the globe I would like to thank PEN Mexico for the great honour of the PEN Mexico Prize 2016.

We are delighted and humbled to be accorded a prize that has such an illustrious list of previous winners and offer our thanks to PEN Mexico for its attention.

ICORN is a network of member cities whose work could not be undertaken without extensive partnerships on the local, national and international level. PEN International and the many PEN Centres around the world have been and remain key to our development and success. Without the commitment of PEN members and clubs, we could not have offered the service we do for writers over the past ten years, so the honour is keenly felt.

We look forward greatly to receiving the honour.

ICORN in Mexico

Helge Lunde, ICORN Executive Director continues:

This is an honour and great news to receive. It is a strong indication that yes, ICORN is becoming a truly global organisation. We have had the privilege of working with Casa Refugio Mexico City and Philippe Ollé-Laprune since the very beginning of ICORN, and we are enthusiastic to expand the network further in Mexico and Latin America.

Previous winners of PEN Mexico Prize

Previous winners of the PEN Mexico prize include newspapers El Diario de Juarez, RÍODOCE, the indigenous Mayan women’s publishing group Las Leñateras, Mexico’s deaf theatre company Seña y Verbo; journalists such as Ginger Thompson, Carmen Aristegui, and Héctor de Mauleon; and the writers Hugh Thomas, Gloria Gervitz and Luis Miguel Aguilar, among others.