The Pen Writer of Courage Award for 2016 has been Selected

The Pen Writer of Courage Award has been selected by Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood and the winner is Bangladeshi publisher and writer Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury, better known as Tutul.

Having survived a machete attack by extremists whilst still in his home country and being forced into exile in Norway Tutul still refuses to be silenced and was named winner of the International Writer of Courage award by Margaret Atwood, on 13 October.

Atwood won the Pen Pinter prize earlier this year and as the award is shared with ‘a writer who has been persecuted for speaking out about their beliefs’ which is selected by the Pinter prize winner in consultation with English Pen’s Writers at Risk committee she was instrumental in choosing the recipient of the Writer of Courage award.

Tutul founded the Shuddhashar magazine and publishing house in Dhaka from where he promoted progressive work from Bangladeshi writers and bloggers and despite the attack which forced him to leave Bangladesh he still challenges his critics, demanding that instead of violence, they use discussion to oppose him saying “a strong effort in Bangladesh to turn the wheels of civilisation backwards and repeat the events and lies of a barbaric era”.
“We are challenging this process through rational thinking and through our writing,” Tutul said when in London recently. “Anyone who wishes to counter [us] can do so through their writing. But please do not issue fatwas to have me, to have us, killed. Do not dispatch undercover assassins with knives and guns.”

For herself, Atwood said about Tutul “Not only has he shown huge personal courage in the face of adversity, he has also risked everything to give a voice to many other Bangladeshis who are under threat of being silenced, whether through violence or ambivalence,” continuing “At a time when so many of our colleagues in Bangladesh are risking their lives simply by putting pen to paper, it seems very fitting to share this award with Tutul, and to highlight the plight that he and his colleagues continue to face.”

Pen says that at least nine writers, intellectuals and activists have been murdered in Bangladesh by Islamic extremists since the start of 2015 with many of the victims working alongside Shuddhashar, including the author and blogger Avijit Roy, who was murdered in the street in February 2015 the same day that Tutul received a death threat for publishing works by atheist authors and in October of last year he was critically injured in a machete attack finally forcing him to seek safety in self imposed exile in Norway.

Tutul hopes that being awarded this prestigious prize will continue to give him courage and inspiration to continue his fight against extremist oppression and will encourage others to rally against the extremism his home country is facing at the moment.