Michael Rosen awarded PEN Pinter Prize 2023

Category : Awards Published on: July 05 2023

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Michael Rosen, the author of more than 200 books for children and adults, has won the 2023 PEN Pinter prize for what judges called a “fearless” body of work that provides a “lesson in humanity.”
Rosen will receive the prize during a ceremony at the British Library in October. Established in memory of English playwright Harold Pinter, the award honours a writer based in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth who – in the words of Pinter’s 2005 Nobel Prize acceptance speech – shows a “fierce intellectual determination” to “define the real truth of our lives and our societies.”
Rosen was the sixth British Children’s Laureate between 2007 and 2009 and is known for making poetry accessible to children through his work and performances. His themes are often social, political and ethical.
In more than 140 books, he has endorsed a way of writing for children that reflects their everyday world, using humor and words to validate their imaginative ways of thinking.
Rosen’s first book of children’s poems, Mind Your Own Business, came out in 1974. At present, he is a professor of children’s literature at Goldsmiths, University of London.