Calling all writers and poets...

Book Donations

As students in Liverpool we experience all the best this fantastic city has to offer: three universities, a modern and well-equipped city centre and a thriving cultural scene. While this Christmas we might quibble with our housemates about the cost of putting on the heating, or peruse Liverpool ONE looking for the perfect present, the situation will be very different for others in the community.
Liverpool is a city of great opportunity and innovation, but it is also one that suffers from a long-term homelessness and poverty problem.
Part of the ethos of English PEN, and subsequently Liverpool Student PEN, is that literature should be available to everyone regardless of their situation. This can be seen in PEN's social outreach work among prisoners, refugees, soldiers, and old and young people (more information can be found here). While people who find themselves homeless obviously require the primary care of somewhere safe to stay and food to eat, once this is achieved it is important that they have the same access to literature and information that people with a permanent residence and stable income perhaps take for granted.
Charities in Liverpool such as the Whitechapel Centre work tirelessly to provide front line care for homeless people, and alongside the run education schemes and provide reading materials.
In a time when our local libraries are in danger of cuts and closing and Liverpool is still home to some of the poorest areas in the country, it is important that we protect the right and ability of every individual to practice the freedom to read.
Come along to our stall in the Liverpool Guild of Students on Wednesday the 17th  between 11 and 1 to donate your books, and learn more about how you can get involved with the society next semester!

Enoh Meyomesse

Enoh Meyomesse is a Cameroonian writer currently being held in Kondengui Central Prison in the country’s capital, Yaoundé. He has been imprisoned in various locations since the 22nd of November 2011, on charges such as being involved with an attempted coup, possessing a firearm, and theft. No evidence or witnesses for these crimes were presented at his trial, and he was not allowed to present a defence. His lawyers were able to appeal his case, but the trial date has been repeatedly postponed and now, 15 months on from the original appeal, the date is set for the 20th of November 2014. However, given past proceedings, it is debatable whether or not this trial will take place.

 In his first 30 days of imprisonment he was subjected to torture; he was kept in complete darkness for the full 30 days and as a result of this has long-term sight damage which could lead to permanent blindness. He is also suffering from gastrointestinal disease which is not consistently treated in the dire conditions under which he is held.

Enoh Meyomesse has continued to write while in prison, and has published a collection of poems, adding to his 15 publications prior to his imprisonment.

Meyomesse himself wrote, “[English PEN] have proven to me that, while my biological family has abandoned me, there exists another family – perhaps even more important – a literary family, a family of novelists and poets like me, which is always beside me and will never abandon me.”, and that is why on the 17th of November, Liverpool Student PEN centre will join with other PEN centres around the globe and write messages of solidarity and support to Enoh Meyomesse.

Learn more
Alain Mabanckou writes to Enoh Meyomesse
Enoh Meyomesse's Website
Enoh Meyomesse writes from jail

 

 

Day of the Imprisoned Writer

Everyone recognises the feeling of excitement when you receive a letter in the post. When it lands in the hallway and the handwritten address on the front of the envelope tells you it’s not junk mail or a bank statement. When you know that it contains words of friendship or good news.

Imagine, now, you are not sitting comfortably on your sofa when you hear that unmistakable clang of the post box and the soft shuffle of letters on the floor. Instead, you are enshrouded in darkness, kept in conditions we all know humans are subjected to but choose to conveniently store at the backs of our collective mind. You are unfairly imprisoned for exaggerated or imaginary crimes, held without fair trial, shut off from the world because of your views and writing. Imagine the moment hope a letter of support could bring.

International PEN has, for the past 32 years, held an annual Day of the Imprisoned Writer. This day highlights the plight of writers around the world who are imprisoned, or at risk of being imprisoned, for holding and writing about beliefs that challenge the status quo. On this day, which in 2014 falls on the Saturday the 15^h of November, supporters of the freedom to read and write bring these issues to the forefront of their communities through readings, letters of support and fundraising activities.

Liverpool Student PEN will be marking the Day of the Imprisoned Writer on Monday the 17^th, (as the official date of the 15th is on a Saturday and we want to make the biggest impact on the University of Liverpool campus), and we will be writing letters of support to the following five writers.

 Nelson Aquilera

Azimjon Askarov

Dieudonné Enoh Meyomesse

Mahvash Sabet

Gao Yu 

Day of the Imprisoned Writer (and change of date for the first meeting)

Saturday 15th of November marks PEN's  'Day of the Imprisoned Writer. This annual event seeks to 'recognise and support writers who resist repression of the basic human right to freedom of expression and who stand up to attacks made against their right to impart information.'

To celebrate and raise awareness for this event our first meeting will now be held on the following Monday, the 17th of November, where we will be joining in with PEN's Season's Greetings campaign and writing cards to send messages of support to imprisoned writers and writers at risk.

The meeting will take place in the Elizabeth Gidney 2 Room in the Guild at 5:15pm on the 17th of November.

Come along to learn more about English PEN and to get involved.

We will provide cards and pens! 

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Launch of new Liverpool Student PEN Society

Our first meeting will be on Monday the 3rd of November at 17:15 in the James E Brown room at the Liverpool Guild of Students! Come along to find out more about what exactly English PEN is and what Liverpool Student PEN will be doing in the coming year.

For more information see the English PEN Charter and their current campaigns.