Phil Klay is the new president of PEN America.
The author was selected by the literary nonprofit organization’s board of trustees to replace Dinaw Mengestu, who resigned his post in July after PEN America published an article about Israeli and Jewish authors who felt isolated in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. Mengestu said the article was part of a pattern of PEN America “defending some rights while not defending others.”
Klay, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, made his literary debut in 2014 with the story collection Redeployment, which won the National Book Award for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, given to a best first book in any genre.
His other books include the novel Missionaries and the nonfiction book Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War.
“As a writer, free expression is the lifeblood of what we do, and that means not simply a narrow legalistic view of the First Amendment, but a broad faith in cultural exchange, in sustained efforts to understand other people, other cultures, and other ideas, including uncomfortable ones, and to the creation of a more open and egalitarian public square,” Klay said in a statement. “That means keeping PEN America an organization writers recognize as their own, and it means continued dialogue with our community, including writers, members, and partners.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
