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PEN Eritrea in Exile conducted its Annual Meeting in Milan, Italy, from 25-26 October 2025. PEN members from around the world attended the annual meeting in person and online, where they discussed a range of topics. The Director of PEN Eritrea, Awet Fissehaye, officially commenced the meeting with opening remarks and the presentation of the agenda for the two-day annual meeting. In his address, he welcomed participants and highlighted the importance of active member engagement to strengthen PEN Eritrea’s operations. After the opening session, PEN Eritrea’s treasurer, Awet Mengsteab, presented the 2025 Financial Report.
Following the treasurer’s presentation, the director delivered the organisation’s annual report, providing an overview of its ongoing work to defend freedom of expression and advance literature. In his report, he highlighted the year’s activities, key achievements, and strategic priorities for 2026.
Thereafter, members engaged in lively discussion of both reports, actively contributing to the question-and-answer session. Members also reviewed and discussed the centre’s charter to ensure it remains up to date and relevant to the association’s current objectives and operational context.
On the second day of the meeting, Sunday, 26 October, PEN Eritrea organised a range of activities, including an Award Ceremony, speeches, a film screening, lectures and poetry readings.
Writer and human rights advocate, and PEN Austria’s representative, Wolfgang Martin Roth, stated that the Austrian PEN Club and his Foundation, the Vienna Committee for Human Rights, will stand with PEN Eritrea in its struggle for freedom of expression and the release of imprisoned writers. He announced his foundation’s plan, in collaboration with PEN Eritrea, to publish a series of poetry anthologies by Eritrean poets and organise poetry festivals in Vienna. The program continued with screening of “Dawit or Evey Century Has Its Own Hideous Face”, a deeply evocative and moving film written by Wolfgang Roth and directed by Luzie Kurth.
Following that, PEN Eritrea hosted an award ceremony honouring the 2025 PEN Eritrea Freedom of Expression Award winner, Biniam Simon, co-founder and former director of Radio Erena in exile. Biniam accepted his award from Wolfgang.
In his acceptance speech, Biniam said,
Today you are giving me something [Award] because you said you [I] have done something. But please remind me that I have also done nothing, so that I can continue working. Thank you very much again.
Next, French novelist, essayist, critic, poet and Officer of Arts and Letters, Louise L. Lambrichs, from the French PEN Club, expressed her centre’s solidarity and delivered a lecture on the ‘Mechanism of Genocidal Repetition in the former Yugoslavia’. She drew a powerful parallel between PEN Eritrea’s advocacy and her own decades-long work examining the genocidal repetition in the former Yugoslavia- showing how both struggles confront systems that use denial to erase the truth and memory.
Nasser Ahmedin, Eritrean writer and scholar, presented a paper titled ‘Art as an oppressing instrument’, in which he explored its subliminal influence in society and culture. Finally, a powerful poetry reading by four poets —Yirgalem Fisseha, Saba Kidane, Kokob Tesfaldet, and Tesfaldet Ghebrehiwet — marked the end of the event.
