J.K. Rowling won PEN award

The free speech organization PEN American Center says it is giving its 2016 PEN/Allen award to author J.K. Rowling. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, which has been administered by the Hemingway Society since 1987, and PEN New England. Mary Hemingway, a member of PEN, founded the award in 1976 both to honor the memory of her husband and to recognize distinguished first books of fiction.The prize honors "a critically acclaimed author whose work embodies its mission to oppose repression in any form and to champion the best of humanity." In particular, the award recognizes Rowling's two charitable foundations — Volant, which works to alleviate poverty and social deprivation, especially among women and children, and Lumos, which helps institutionalized children return to family life. Past winners include Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood. 

PEN is also honoring Hachette Book Group CEO Michael Pietsch. Pietsch joined with several other publishers last year in an informal pledge to combat censorship of translated books in China. Hachette imprint Little, Brown also published the posthumous manifesto Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression by Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier, who died in the terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine last year.