More than 100 writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners Junot Díaz and Alice Walker, have called on the PEN American Center to reject sponsorship from the Israeli Embassy for PEN’s upcoming week-long World Voices Festival in New York City. The call is part of the cultural boycott campaign against Israel, part of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Alice Walker said, "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."