NEW YORK -- The CEO of PEN America, Suzanne Nossel, is stepping down after more than a decade marked by substantial growth and recent controversy , In January, she will be heading the pro-democracy Freedom House. “I am tremendously honored to lead an organization with Freedom House’s extraordinary track record at the forefront of fighting tyranny in all its forms,” Nossel said in a statement released Thursday by Freedom House, a nonprofit founded in 1941 to help raise American opposition to fascism. Since Nossel was named CEO of PEN in 2013, the annual budget for the literary and free expression organization has surged from $2 million to $20 million.
PEN has presided over a wide range of ambitious programs, from prison writing to the tracking of book bans. Each spring, PEN has hosted a high-profile fundraising gala at the American Museum of Natural History, organized a World Voices Festival attended by authors from dozens of countries and handed out literary awards worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over the past year, Nossel and the leadership at PEN have been widely criticized by authors and others in the literary community for its response to the Israel-Hamas war .
Hundreds of writers endorsed letters or otherwise spoke out over what they believed was PEN's failure to forcefully condemn the killing and censorship of Palestinian artists and journalists. Last spring, PEN canceled its annual awards ceremony after dozens of nominees withdrew and canceled the World V.