PEN America, Facing Continued Criticism Over Its Response to the Middle East War, Gathers for Annual Gala

NEW YORK — With guests including Paul Simon and Seth Meyers, PEN America will gather Thursday night for its annual gala, a well-dressed, high-profile event elevated even more because some wondered if it would even be held at all.

The literary and human rights organization has faced continued criticism over its response to the war between Israel and Hamas, with hundreds of writers alleging that PEN has shown limited concern for the suffering of Gaza residents and the deaths of writers and journalists. Palestinians. PEN has already canceled its spring awards ceremony, after dozens of nominees withdrew, and its World Voices festival, after hundreds of people signed an open letter saying they would not participate.

But the gala is the organization’s biggest annual fundraiser, with more than $2 million already coming from Thursday’s event, and key supporters from previous years are contributing again. All five major New York publishers – Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group and Macmillan – are listed as sponsors, along with organizations including Bloomberg and Barnes & Noble to the National Basketball Association and the David Geffen Foundation.

“The test of our partnerships is whether we can find a common cause, not whether we have all causes in common,” said Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, in a statement.

Hundreds of people are expected at the benefit dinner at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Honorees Thursday night included Simon, Wall Street Journal editor Almar Latour and Vietnamese dissident Pham Doan Trang. Meyers will serve as master of ceremonies.

Authors scheduled to appear include Robert Caro, Candace Bushnell, Jay McInerney and Andrew Solomon, a former PEN president who joined Salman Rushdie, Jennifer Egan and other former PEN officials in publishing a letter in April urging “the writers to keep faith in the community we have built together so that PEN America can continue to evolve in ways that serve and elevate writers as a vital force within society.”

Protests against PEN continued and writers clashed publicly. Author and journalist George Packer, a PEN board member, earlier this month condemned what he called the “authoritarian spirit” of PEN critics, alleging in The Atlantic that they were pressuring others not to support the organization. Novelist Dinaw Mengestu, vice president of PEN, responded on Instagram by claiming that Packer’s essay “perverts and distorts legitimate and necessary criticism against PEN” and trivializes the Gaza war.

Last week, more than a dozen writers who withdrew from PEN events held a benefit reading at a church in midtown Manhattan, with proceeds going to We Are Not Numbers, a youth-led Palestinian nonprofit in Gaza. that defends human rights. When opening speaker Nancy Kricorian referred to PEN’s cancellations, the audience cheered and applauded. Another speaker, writer and translator Esther Allen, criticized PEN for continuing with the fundraising gala while canceling the awards show and World Voices.

“The priorities couldn’t be clearer,” she said.