Support for PEN Centre BiH

In October 1992, writers who remained in Sarajevo decided to create the PEN Centre Bosnia and Herzegovina and apply for membership at the International PEN. The Slovenian PEN Centre, led by Boris A. Novak, was particularly engaged in supporting the new PEN centre and writers from BiH – both those who remained in Sarajevo and those who were abroad as refugees. This included financial and material help, informing and mobilizing other national PEN Centres and PEN International about the dramatic situation in BiH, and representing the PEN Centre BiH at International PEN events.

The International PEN unanimously accepted the PEN Centre BiH as a member at its annual conference in October 1993, which was held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. But PEN Centre BiH members were not able to attend, as it was impossible to leave besieged Sarajevo. A PEN Centre BiH delegation first participated at the following annual conference in Prague in October 1994, where it was very warmly welcomed. Besides the Slovenian PEN, other national PEN centres showed strong commitment to supporting writers from BiH; the American PEN, for example, organized a fundraising event for the PEN Centre BiH and its members in November 1993 in New York. Among the participants of the “An evening for Sarajevo”-event figured Susan Sontag, Don DeLillo, Arthur Miller, Louis Begley, Derek Walcott, Josef Brodsky and Zlatko Dizdarevic.

Writers and PEN members from different countries also came to Sarajevo during the siege, and participated in activities (co-)organized by the PEN Centre BiH in order to show solidarity and moral support with their colleagues.