Stephen Sondheim Awarded Prestigious PEN Literary Honor
Image by YouTube
By Talya Zax February 9, 2017
Stephen Sondheim will receive the 2017 PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award, PEN America announced on Wednesday. The organization, which advocates for freedom of literary expression worldwide, annually gives the honor to a writer who, according to their website, “helps us to understand the human condition in original and powerful ways.” Sondheim is the first composer-lyricist to receive the award.
“Stephen Sondheim’s oeuvre is profoundly literary in its elegiac reaching for the truth of who we are, how we love, and how we strive to locate meaning in our work,” said Andrew Solomon, president of PEN America, in a press release announcing the award. “He will be the first composer-lyricist to receive this award, which recognizes his nuanced insight into human character. His support for a new generation of writers makes him a literary citizen of the first order.”
Recent winners of the award include J.K. Rowling, playwright Tom Stoppard, Salman Rushdie, and Philip Roth. Meryl Streep, who starred in the 2014 film adaptation of Sondheim’s “Into the Woods,” will present the Broadway icon with the award at PEN’s annual Literary Gala on April 25.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
