Hermann Kesten Award 2022

Tags: Awards

Indian activist-writer-poet Meena Kandasamy has been declared the winner of the Herman Keston Prize 2022.

Important facts

• This Award is given by the PEN Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. The award will be given on 15 November 2022.

• Meena Kandasamy is a Chennai-born anti-caste activist, novelist and poet. The award recognizes her work on topics of race, gender and ethnic oppression.

• Ms Kandasamy joins a list of notable figures such as Günter Grass and Harold Pinter, whom Penn has seen as defenders of freedom of expression.

• Her books are "The Gypsy Goddess," (2014) and "When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife" (2017). She has also published anthologies of her poems, most notably "Ms Militancy" (2010) and This Poem Will Provoke You and Other Poems" (2015).

About Hermann Kesten Award

• Started in 1985, the award was initially given once in two years till 1993. It has been given on an annual basis since 1994.

• The award is given to individuals who stand up for the rights of persecuted writers and journalists.

• In 2008, it was renamed the Hermann Kesten Award.