91st Congress of the International Pen Club

By: Pedro Corzo - 17/09/2025

Guest columnist.
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I had the honor of participating in the 91st Congress of the International Pen Club held in Krakow, Poland, which was attended by hundreds of members of dozens of clubs from around the world, one of them being the Cuban Exile Pen Club, chaired by Dr. Daniel Pedreira.

The Cuban delegation consisted of three people: Dr. Pedreira, former political prisoner Kemel Jamiz, who, although not a member of the Pen, welcomed our invitation to participate in the event, and myself.

PEN International, founded in London in 1921 by Catherine Amy Dawson Scott, is an organization that promotes freedom of expression and friendship among writers. Its name, an acronym for Poets, Essayists, and Novelist, has incorporated into its events, an action replicated by local PEN members, the concept of the Empty Chair. This involves designating a writer in prison or persecution as the symbolic occupant of an important position at the plenary meeting.

First of all, I must say that the program was very well organized. The host country, Poland, did an excellent job, which we all deserve to recognize. The sessions were intense but not exhausting, and many current issues were discussed that are worth reflecting on.

I had never participated in a meeting of writers, poets and journalists of such caliber and I could not help but think how many of these valuable events Cuban creators have missed due to suffering a totalitarian regime for 66 years. For their part, authors in exile have had the opportunity to be present thanks to the efforts of Octavio R. Costa, Reinaldo Bragado Bretaña, Indamiro Restano and Armando de Armas who, under the leadership of the unforgettable Ángel Cuadra, managed to get PEN International to welcome the Cuban PEN in Exile, a condition that is quite difficult to achieve.

The Cuban Pen delegation's objective was to ensure that the imprisoned Cuban poet María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence for peacefully demonstrating on July 11, 2021, demanding "freedom" for Cuba, was honored with the prior proposal that she occupy an empty chair, a distinction that was also achieved by another Latin American, the Venezuelan journalist, Rory Branker, also in prison.

Another purpose of the delegation of Cuban exiles was to clarify the participation in Pen International of a Cuban Pen based on the Island, a membership objected to by the exiles since the times when the writer Jose Antonio Albertini served as its president, who always objected to the incorporation of a Havana club because it could never fulfill the founding precepts of Pen International to defend freedom of expression and information, much less fight for those whose rights are violated by the Castro dictatorship, in addition, having not shown signs of activity for several months, for which reason he was put to "sleep", a condition that was refuted by Dr. Pedreira who considered that for all the reasons stated he should be excluded from the organization.

But all that glitters is not gold, and in my four days of continuous sessions and hallway meetings, I was able to appreciate—this is a personal opinion—that an organization that has earned widespread international prestige is in danger of losing its identity and becoming a body of activists guided more by likes and dislikes than by reason.

For example, a proposal by the board to reform the statutes governing the institution alludes to broadening the range of members by allowing the entry of people who are not precisely novelists, poets, and essayists, which would open the floodgates to political activists of all stripes, a condition that, in my opinion, would undermine the effectiveness of the PEN.

Furthermore, at a meeting held by several executives of Latin American PENs, under the direction of Ms. Alicia Quiñones, one of the participants expressed concern about undocumented immigrants in prison in the United States and the possibility that some of them were authors. I responded that this could be true, but that what he was saying could not be compared with what authors suffered in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, and many other countries.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».