Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

Stephen Sondheim Awarded Prestigious PEN Literary Honor

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.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.