deilibri

Last Friday an audience gathered at the British Library to honour Leila Aboulela as winner of the PEN Pinter Prize 2025.

The judges praised Aboulela for her ‘nuanced and rich perspectives on themes that are vital in our contemporary world: faith, migration, and displacement’, calling her writing ‘a balm, a shelter, and an inspiration’.

During her acceptance speech, she announced that Stella Gaitano, writer, journalist and human rights activist, as the Writer of Courage 2025. This prize awarded annually to an author who is active in defence of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty, and shares the PEN Pinter Prize with the winner.

Said Ms Aboulela: ‘It is an honour and a pleasure to share my prize with Stella Gaitano, a writer I have admired and read avidly over the years. Stella is a principled writer and a fearless activist, who has endured hate speech and physical threats. Reading her work has opened my eyes to the injustices and consequences of war in Sudan. She is a wonderful, enriching writer who has already broken new ground in African literature.’

Thanking her, Stella Gaitano told the audience: ‘I am honoured that Leila Aboulela has chosen to share this award with me. This is not only an award for courage, but also one for survival. I dedicate it to the brave Sudanese and South Sudanese writers who continue to write during wartime, in the absence of freedom of expression. I dedicate it to all the persecuted writers of the world whose words have led them to prison, exile, or death. Telling the truth can risk such threats.’

The PEN Pinter Prize is awarded annually to a writer who, in the words of Harold Pinter’s Nobel speech, casts an ‘unflinching, unswerving’ gaze upon the world, and shows a ‘fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies’.

[Pictures: Leila Aboulela © George Torode; Stella Gaitano © Doha Mohammed]

Last week saw the sad death of Liverpool poet Brian Patten, ironically just a couple of days before National Poetry Day 2025.

Patten, who has been described as a “force of nature”, died peacefully, in hospital, aged 79. Born in Liverpool in 1946, Patten came to prominence with The Mersey Sound, published by Penguin in 1967 as part of their Penguin Modern Poets series of paperbacks. He co-wrote the anthology alongside Roger McGough and the late Adrian Henri. It is thought to be one of the best-selling poetry anthologies of all time.

Each poet has their own section with Patten concluding with his selection of 26 poems, including two of my favourites: ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Smethwick’ and ‘Schoolboy’. The collection sold over 500,000 copies and remains in print. It was a ‘must have’ book when it was first published and brought the three poets “considerable acclaim and critical fame”. It has been widely influential.

He has been described as enigmatic, challenging and having a quicksilver spirit. It is sad that yet another poet of our time has gone. Maybe he wouldn’t wish to be called an icon but he was. Commenting on the news of his death Roger McGough said he was “laid low” by the news of his friend’s death writing: “My soul-mate. R.I.P. May he Rest In Poetry.”