In an era that devours nuance and shames intellect, the right to speak, write, and think freely is no longer a given—it is a battle. PEN America’s 2025 Literary Gala did not merely acknowledge this truth. It embodied it.
Held beneath the haunting majesty of the 21,000-pound blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History, the night unfolded like a requiem for reason—and a call to arms for those who still believe in the emancipatory power of the written word.
More than 600 guests gathered not simply to applaud. They came to defend language itself.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Macmillan Publishers CEO Jon Yaged, and Wesleyan University President Michael Roth were honored for their unwavering defense of free expression. The heartbeat of the evening, however, belonged to a man who could not attend. Galal El-Behairy, the 34-year-old Egyptian poet imprisoned for seven years for daring to write verses critical of his government, received PEN’s Freedom to Write Award. His sister and father traveled across continents to accept the honor on his behalf.
Their presence cracked open the room with a kind of solemn beauty that no chandelier or designer gown could match. The applause was not performative. It was reverent. It was grief gilded in hope.
Amber Ruffin, irreverent and searing, hosted the evening with the clarity of a comedian who knows laughter is the last form of resistance before silence sets in.
“We can joke about it, until we can’t,” she said. Her words landed not as a punchline, but as prophecy.
PEN America has documented more than 16,000 book bans across the United States since 2021. Censorship is no longer theoretical. It is strategic. It is sweeping. It is calculated to humiliate, erase, and dull the capacity for independent thought. In schools, libraries, and universities, the war on knowledge is not being waged—it is being won. Gatherings like this are no longer cultural indulgences. They are essential acts of preservation.
Parker, ever luminous and razor-sharp, accepted the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award not as a celebrity, but as a mother, a publisher, and a lifelong lover of books.
“This occasion calls for a precise word,” she declared. “I am enraged.” Her voice trembled with eloquent fury as she spoke of book bans in public schools, community libraries, and even the U.S. Naval Academy. “To censor a book,” she said, “is to limit imagination, curiosity, connection, empathy, and inspiration. Libraries aren’t just buildings with shelves. They are sanctuaries of possibility.”
Jon Yaged, recipient of the Business Visionary Award, spoke with the clarity of a man who understands that publishing is not just an industry—it is a frontline.
“This makes us weaker,” he said. “It puts us on a path to mediocrity as a people and decline as a nation.”
His introduction came from actor and author Taye Diggs, who reminded the room that even children’s books can become threats when they dare to reflect the full spectrum of identity. Several of Diggs’s own works have been banned for being “too multicultural.”
Wesleyan’s Michael Roth, recipient of the PEN/Benenson Courage Award, delivered a defense of higher education with the urgency of someone who has watched intellectual inquiry become politicized into heresy.
“We need writers and teachers, editors and publishers,” he said, “to remind our fellow Americans that if you reside in this country, you have every right to due process, to speak your mind, to love who you want.”
His commitment to academic freedom underscored the evening’s central truth: freedom of thought is not an academic concern. It is a national one.
