SLOVAK PEN CENTRE

JOHN RALSTON SAUL ELECTED PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL PEN

Today, October 21st, the International PEN Assembly of Delegates of International PEN, meeting in Linz, Austria, elected John Ralston Saul of Canada as International President.

He succeeds Jiri Grusa, one of the most important dissident Czech writers, who has held the post for six years. Earlier presidents have included Arthur Miller, Mario Vargas Llosa and Alberto Moravia.

John Ralston Saul is a celebrated Canadian novelist and essayist and former President of Canadian PEN. He has been awarded, among others, Chile’s Pablo Neruda medal, Italy's Premio Letterario Internazionale and the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres de France.

“International PEN is the world’s most important and oldest freedom of speech and literary organisation. Almost 1,000 writers who are in prison or are in danger around the world look to us for help. We have to invent new ways of turning back the rise of authoritarian controls," said Saul.

"Threats to freedom of speech are expanding in new directions, especially with the rise of populism in the post-9/11 world.

"In addition, hundreds of minority and indigenous languages and cultures are in danger of extinction. This is the ultimate denial of freedom of speech.”

Founded in 1921 to promote literature, International PEN has 144 Centres in 102 countries around the globe.

For further information or to interview John Ralston Saul: 416-964-2313


John Ralston Saul - BIOGRAPHY

John Ralston Saul, a long-time champion of freedom of expression, has been intimately involved with International PEN since 1987, when he was elected to the Board of PEN Canada, serving as president from 1990-1992. He is equally an active member of Centre québécois du PEN international.

Since 1999, he has been the Honorary Patron of PEN Canada and was one of the driving forces in the creation of their Writers In Exile Network in 2004. He is also a member of the Council of Writers and Experts of ICORN (International Cities of Refuge Network), and has been actively involved in supporting other centres and in advancing many writer in prison cases, most recently in Afghanistan, China and Iran.

An award-winning essayist and novelist, John Ralston Saul has had a growing impact on political and economic thought in many countries. Declared a “prophet” by TIME magazine, he is included in the prestigious Utne Reader’s list of the world’s 100 leading thinkers and visionaries. His works have been translated into 22 languages in 30 countries. Some of his books are published first in French. All are published close to simultaneously in English and French; seven have been translated into Spanish.

In 2005 in his book The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World, Saul warned that, like it or not, Globalism was already collapsing and that if we did not act quickly we would be caught in a crisis and limited to emergency reactions. The crisis struck in 2008 and The Collapse of Globalism is being reissued in 2009 in an enlarged form to deal with its implications.

His most recent book, A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada, argues that the country is far more Aboriginal in its methods than European, a denied reality shared with many other countries in the Americas.

He has received many national and international awards for his writing, most recently the Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honour from the Chilean government. The Unconscious Civilization won the 1996 Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, as well as the Gordon Montador Award for Best Canadian Book on Social Issues. His reinterpretation of the nature of Canada, Reflections of a Siamese Twin (1997) also won a Montador Award. It was chosen by Maclean’s magazine as one of the ten best non-fiction books of the twentieth century. His novel, The Paradise Eater, won the Premio Lettarario Internazionale in Italy.

Saul is perhaps best known for his philosophical trilogy – Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, The Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense and The Unconscious Civilization. This was followed by a meditation on the trilogy – On Equilibrium: Six Qualities of the New Humanism.

He has published five novels, including The Birds of Prey, an international best seller, as well as The Field Trilogy, which deals with the crisis of modern power and its clash with the individual. It includes Baraka or The Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor of Anthony Smith, The Next Best Thing, and The Paradise Eater. De Si Bons Americains is a picaresque novel in which he observes the life of modern nouveaux riches Americans.

He is particularly known for his commentaries on the nature of individualism, citizenship and the public good; the role of freedom of speech and culture; the failures of managerially/technocratically led societies; the confusion between leadership and managerialism; military strategy, in particular irregular warfare; and his critique of contemporary economic arguments.

John Ralston Saul is co-Chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, which works to draw new citizens into public social and political structures. He is also Founder and Honorary Chair of Le français pour l’avenir / French for the Future, an organization which advances the use of French among secondary school students. He is Founder and Chair of the Advisory Board for the LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture series, which develops arguments for an egalitarian and inclusive approach to democracy, and a Patron both of PLAN, a cutting edge organization tied to people with disabilities, and of Engineers without Borders. A Companion in the Order of Canada (1999), he is also Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France (1996). His 13 honourary degrees range from McGill and the Université d’Ottawa to Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg, Russia.

John Ralston Saul was born in Ottawa. He studied at McGill University and the University of London, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1972.


www.johnralstonsaul.com


JOHN RALSTON SAUL
OPENING CEREMONY OF INTERNATIONAL PEN LITERARY FESTIVAL – FREE THE WORD! LINZ
22 OCTOBER 2009

HERR BUNDESPRÄSIDENT, HEINZ FISCHER
HERR LANDESHAUPTMANN
AMBASSADORS OF CANADA AND JAPAN
JIŘÍ GRUŠA
EUGENE SCHOULGIN
WOLFGANG GREISENEGGER


THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE SPOKEN AS THE NEWLY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL PEN.   THE HONOUR OF STANDING IN THE LONG LINE OF HEINRICH BÖLL, ALBERTO MORAVIA, ARTHUR MILLER, MARIO VARGAS LLOSA, HOMERO ARIDJIS AND, OF COURSE, JIŘÍ GRUŠA, SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.  

BUNDESPRÄSIDENT FISCHER, THE SUPPORT OF LEADERS SUCH AS YOURSELF FOR THE SPECIFICS OF OUR CAUSE IS INVALUABLE. LET ME SAY, ON BEHALF OF US ALL, THAT AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE AUSTRIAN PEOPLE AND THE AUSTRIAN STATE, YOU DO US A GREAT HONOUR BY YOUR PRESENCE.

WE, THE HUNDREDS OF WRITERS IN THIS HALL, CANNOT MAKE SUCH AN EXCLUSIVE CLAIM ABOUT WHO WE REPRESENT.   BUT WE CAN SAY THAT WE REPRESENT THE THOUSANDS OF WRITERS AND PUBLISHERS WHO ARE MEMBERS OF INTERNATIONAL PEN IN MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED COUNTRIES.   FOR EIGHTY-EIGHT YEARS PEN HAS BEEN THE LEADING VOICE DEFENDING AND ADVANCING THE REALITY OF LITERATURE – AND THEREFORE DEFENDING AND ADVANCING THE REALITY OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.  YOU SEE US HERE GATHERED TOGETHER AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL. BUT THE SECRET OF OUR STRENGTH AND OUR ETHICAL CORE LIES AT THE GRASSROOTS WITH THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF WRITERS IN COUNTRIES OF EVERY DESCRIPTION AROUND THE WORLD.

ACROSS A CENTURY OF UNPRECEDENTED VIOLENCE AND DISORDER WE HAVE WORKED FOR THE UNLEASHED WORD. THOUSANDS OF OUR MEMBERS – AND OTHER WRITERS WHO WERE NOT ABLE TO BE MEMBERS – HAVE DIED FOR THEIR EXPRESSION OF THE WORD, HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED, SILENCED AND DRIVEN INTO EXILE, WHICH IS OFTEN ANOTHER FORM OF SILENCING. WHAT CAN A WRITER DO, STRIPPED OF HER LANGUAGE AND PUBLIC? EXILE MAY REPRESENT PHYSICAL FREEDOM, BUT IT IS MORE OFTEN THAN NOT A PRISON OF SILENCE.

THE WONDERFULLY UNFORGIVING THOMAS BERNHARD WROTE THAT OUR SOCIETIES “LOCK UP THE GREAT THINKERS IN OUR BOOKCASES, FROM WHICH THEY STARE AT US, SENTENCED TO ETERNAL RIDICULE.”

THE WRITERS OF INTERNATIONAL PEN WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY CLIMB OUT OF THOSE BOOKCASES TO WORK AND TO SPEAK FOR THE CENTRAL CAUSE OF OUR CIVILIZATIONS – THE FREE AND CREATIVE AND ACTIVE USE OF THE WORD.

NONE OF US CAN DO WHAT WE CANNOT SAY AND WRITE. WE CANNOT EVEN THINK WHAT WE CANNOT SAY. WE MAY FEEL IT.   BUT FEELING DOES NOT REPLACE WRITING, OR THINKING, WITHOUT WHICH WE ARE ON THE ROAD TO POPULISM, NOT TO FREE EXPRESSION.   THE LIFE OF A FAIR SOCIETY BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE IF LITERATURE AND THUS LANGUAGE IS IMPRISONED.   IT IS NOT ONLY AUTHORITARIAN SYSTEMS WHICH FEAR THE IMAGINATION. OVER THE LAST DECADE WE HAVE SEEN SOME OF THIS CONFUSION GROW IN WESTERN DEMOCRACIES.   AND WE SEE IT IN TODAY’S ENORMOUS SYSTEMS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, DRIVEN BY THE DEAD LANGUAGE OF ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY.  IN ALL THESE CASES IT BECOMES INCREASINGLY, IN JOSEPH ROTH’S PHRASE, “A MATTER OF INDIFFERENCE WHETHER A MAN LIVES OR DIES.”  INDIFFERENCE FROM THE EXECUTIONER. INDIFFERENCE FROM THE OBSERVER OF THE EXECUTION.

PEN HAS LONG FOCUSED ON KEEPING WRITERS ALIVE AND GETTING THEM OUT OF PRISON.   IN 2010, OUR WRITERS IN PRISON COMMITTEE WILL HAVE BEEN AT THIS FOR 50 YEARS, WITH A LONG LINE OF SUCCESSES.   AND YET TODAY WE ARE WORKING FOR THE FREEDOM AND SAFETY OF 900 WRITERS, IMPRISONED AND IN DANGER.   AND WE ARE CENTRAL TO THE CREATION OF NETWORKS WHICH HELP WRITERS FORCED INTO EXILE TO RECREATE THEIR LIVES AND KEEP THEIR VOICES.   WE HELP THEM TO BREAK OUT OF THEIR PRISON OF SILENCE.  WE ARE WORKING TO CHANGE THE SITUATIONS WHICH IN MEXICO HAVE CAUSED THE MURDER OF ALMOST 30 WRITERS OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS; IN KENYA HAS FED A VIOLENCE WHICH INCLUDES THE REPEATED ARREST OF OUR PEN PRESIDENT THERE; IN CUBA KEEPS 26 WRITERS IN PRISON; IN CHINA 40; IN RUSSIA INVOLVES THE MURDER OF WRITERS.   ALL OF THESE WRITERS HAVE RISKED EVERYTHING FOR THE WORD.

AND YET THESE WORDS DO NOT BELONG TO ANY OF US AS WRITERS. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND CREATIVITY ARE AS MUCH ABOUT READING AND HEARING AND THINKING AND ACTION AS THEY ARE ABOUT WRITING AND SPEAKING.  WRITERS ARE AMONG THE FIRST TO SUFFER BECAUSE THEY ARE ON THE FRONT LINE OF EXPRESSION; BUT TO READ AND HEAR YOU MUST SOMEHOW APPROACH THAT LINE.

WRITERS SPEAK THEIR MINDS. THAT’S WHY THEY ARE IN PRISON. THEY SPEAK OUR MIND.

THE MEMBERS HAVE HEARD ME TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF ADVANCING THE ROLE OF OUR THREE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES. BUT ALSO OF CONCENTRATING ON MINORITY LANGUAGES AND CULTURES.   THESE LANGUAGES FACE A NEW TYPE OF THREAT TO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.   THE SIMPLE FORCE OF INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGES CAN EASILY FALL INTO WHAT AMOUNTS TO IMPERIAL INTELLECTUAL STRUCTURES.   EVERYWHERE INDIGENOUS AND OTHER LANGUAGES ARE DISAPPEARING, WHICH MEANS LITERATURES AND CULTURES ARE DISAPPEARING. THERE IS NO ADVANTAGE IN THIS TO ANY OF US. THIS IS NOT PROGRESS.   IT IS REGRESSION FROM THE COMPLEXITY OF DIFFERENT CULTURES LEARNING HOW TO LIVE TOGETHER.

SOME MIGHT SAY THAT WITH THE END OF THIS CONGRESS AND THE BEGINNING OF THE FESTIVAL, WE ARE MOVING FROM THE POLITICS OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION TO THE WORLD OF THE IMAGINATION AND LITERATURE. BUT THAT IS NOT SO. LITERATURE AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ARE ONE AND THE SAME.   THEY ARE THE FOUNDATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL PEN, JUST AS THEY ARE CENTRAL TO THE CREATION AND STRENGTH OF ANY FAIR SOCIETY.