Some 100 writers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning Alice Walker, Richard Ford, and Junot Diaz, have urged the PEN American Centre to reject any support from Israel as it denies “basic rights to the Palestinian people.”

The writers sent an impassioned letter to PEN American Centre in March but it became public only on Wednesday. PEN American Center, created in 1922, is a group aiming to promote literature and support literary fellowship.

Die Pulitzerpreis-Gewinner Alice Walker, Richard Ford und Junot Díaz zählen zu den Unterzeichnern eines offenen Briefes, der sich an die amerikanische Sektion der internationalen Schriftstellervereinigung PEN richtet.

Darin fordern die über 100 Unterzeichner, dass das US-PEN-Zentrum die Unterstützung der israelischen Botschaft ablehnen solle, die zu den Sponsoren des jährlich vom PEN-Zentrum ausgerichteten Festivals World Voices zählt.

On Tuesday April 5, Adalah-NY made public a letter signed by 10 anti-racist organizations and over 100 writers calling on the PEN American Center “to reject support from the Embassy of Israel” for PEN’s annual World Voices Festival, which runs from April 25-May 1 2016 in New York City.

Israel has contributed money to PEN American Center’s World Voices Festival to help pay for expenses related to invited Israeli writers. Unsurprisingly, this has sent Alice Walker and 100 other writers into a tizzy: "As a PEN member, I want this organization that is supposed to be a champion of writers' rights to stand up for Palestinian writers, academics and students who are suffering under a repressive Israeli regime that denies their right to freedom of expression.