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PEN
USA Honors Raúl Rivero Castañeda
PEN
USA. August 29, 2003.
PEN USA, part of the 82-year old worldwide association
of writers which promotes literacy and defends
freedom of expression - will award the 2003 Freedom
to Write prize to Raúl Rivero Castañeda.
We honor him for his courage against overwhelming
odds and his commitment to the written word regardless
of the consequences.
On March 31, 2003, poet and journalist Raúl
Rivero Castañeda, 57, was arrested along
with 80 writers and dissidents and given a 20-year
prison sentence for action "against the independence
or the territorial integrity of the state."
Once a prominent writer for the official Cuban
News Agency, Rivero broke with the government
a decade ago when he signed an intellectuals'
petition asking Castro to free prisoners of conscience.
In 1995 Rivero defied Castro by founding the
illegal news agency, CubaPress. Since, then he
has regularly published articles about life in
Cuba in newspapers around the world. Though his
poetry is banned in Cuba, Rivero's work reaches
a global audience via the Internet.
In a New York Times article, Raul Rivero Castaneda
wrote, "Nobody can make me feel like a criminal,
an enemy target or someone who does not love his
country…I am merely a man who writes."
PEN USA's 13th Annual Literary Awards Festival
will be held on October 20, 2003 at the Biltmore
Hotel, in Los Angeles. We invite you to join PEN
USA in our support for Raúl Rivero Castañeda,
by taking out an ad in the Festival Tribute Book.
The deadline for advertising copy and materials
is September 15, 2003. For further information,
please contact Marjorie Goldberg (Marjorie@penusa.org)
or call, 213-365-8500. All contributions are tax
deductible (www.penusa.org).
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