Leila Aboulela Wins PEN Pinter Prize
According to cinemadrame News Agency, the 2025 PEN Pinter Prize has been awarded to Sudanese author Leila Aboulela. The award recognizes her works which offer a humane perspective on migration, faith, and the lives of Muslim women in exile.
The jury members praised the author, commending her works for their “precise and rich insights into themes that are so vital in today’s world—faith, migration, and displacement.” They wrote: “Her writing is healing, sheltering, and inspiring.”
About Leila Aboulela
Aboulela, who grew up in Khartoum, Sudan, and has lived in Aberdeen, Scotland, since 1990, is the author of six novels, including “The Minaret,” “The Translator” (which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), and “Lyrics Alley.” She has also published two collections of short stories.
Her recent short story collection, “Elsewhere, Home,” won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award.
Her latest novel, “River Spirit,” published in 2023, delves into the period before the British occupation of Sudan in 1898, portraying complex human dimensions of the confrontation between Britain and Sudan, Christianity and Islam, and colonizer and colonized.
On Receiving the Award
According to Arab News, Aboulela stated after receiving the PEN Pinter Literary Prize: “For someone like me, a Sudanese Muslim migrant who writes from a faith perspective and tests the boundaries of secular tolerance, this prize truly means something. This award deepens and broadens the concept of freedom of expression and what stories get heard.”
The author is scheduled to officially receive her award at a ceremony at the British Library on October 10th.
Statements from English PEN
Ruth Borthwick, President of English PEN, stated: “Leila Aboulela’s writing is remarkable in its breadth and subtlety. From jewel-like short stories to deeply compassionate novels, she tells overlooked stories that make us look afresh at our neighbors and our society.”
About the PEN Pinter Prize
The PEN Pinter Prize was launched in 2009 in the name of Nobel laureate playwright Harold Pinter. The award has previously been bestowed upon renowned figures such as Hanif Kureishi, Tony Harrison, Carol Ann Duffy, Tom Stoppard, Margaret Atwood, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This prize is awarded by English PEN to a writer residing in the UK, Ireland, or the Commonwealth who demonstrates “outstanding literary merit.”
Last year, the 77-year-old British author Michael Rosen won this literary award.
