Day of the Imprisoned Writer

Today is the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, an annual, international day intended to recognize and support writers who resist repression of the right to freedom of expression, sponsored by PEN. Because we are reading Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen this month, and Appiah is the current President of PEN USA, I wanted to be sure to not let the day pass by unacknowledged.  Here he is talking about PEN's work on behalf of imprisoned Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo:


At the PEN website, be sure to check out the suggested actions on behalf of writers in Ethiopia, China, Mexico, Bahrain and Turkey. Write a letter today or print them out and bring them to Amnesty International's Global Write-a-thon in December.

You can take action for Liu Xiaobo here. Imprisonment won't keep him silent though. The Guardian reports on the first collection of his work in English, No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems, coming out in January.