Mon 10 March 2008 at 5.00 pm

Ophelia Field: ‘Writers’ Freedoms and the Silencing of Dissent’

Publishing Research Seminar Series

Taking Place: BG05/10 in Semester 2 2008

The English Writers in Prison Committee has worked since 1960 on behalf of persecuted and silenced writers to bring their cases to light throughout the world.

Ophelia Field runs the English PEN Writers in Prison programme and is also an author and freelance writer. She has worked for over a decade as an advocate for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers and has been an expert consultant to various organisations, including the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, Human Rights Watch and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Her talk will focus on writers' freedoms in selected overseas countries, with a particular emphasis on China and on imprisonment or violence against individual writers when suppression of the dissenting voice goes beyond mere censorship.

English PEN is part of International PEN, an association with centres across the world which provides support for writers and readers world-wide and opportunities for the international sharing of literature.

Read more about English PEN on their website http://www.englishpen.org/.

All are welcome to the seminar.