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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Tonight, PEN America, the organization that promotes literature and human rights, especially the right to free expression, will host its 61st annual Literary Awards ceremony at Town Hall. This year, the ceremony is honoring, among others, Mozambican author Mia Couto with the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. He was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Komoyash Prize, considered one of the most important literary awards in the Portuguese language among many others. His fiction centers the stories of those who could be considered Mozambique's anti-heroes, peasants, women and the victims of civil war and their struggles amidst the backdrop of the country's experience with colonialism under the Portuguese. Joining us now to preview tonight's event and talk about the work of PEN America promoting free expression right now are Mia Couto, Mozambican author and recipient of this year's PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature and, and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, interim co-CEO of PEN America. Mia, Clarisse, welcome to WNYC.

Mia Couto: Thank you so much. Thank you.

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf: Thank you, Brian, for having us today.

Brian Lehrer: Clarisse, by way of background, for listeners who are unfamiliar, tonight's event sometimes gets called the Oscars for Books, or maybe you call it that. By way of introduction, what do tonight's awards represent?

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf: The PEN America Literary Awards ceremony happens every year in the spring and we do love to call it the Oscars for Books. This is a night where the stars are the writers and we shine a light on incredible work, incredible voices. They represent a wide diversity of genres. We span the gamut of emerging voices, emerging writers and masters of their crafts like Mia.

Brian Lehrer: Before we bring Mia on, do you want to talk a little bit about why you're honoring him with the Nabokov Prize?

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf: Yes, absolutely. the PEN/Nabokov Award is-- All our awards are special, but this is one that I, particularly, am attached to because it's a chance for PEN America to recognize the importance of world literature, international literature, but also literature in translation. Most of our award winners, but not all, write in a language other than English. Mia writes in Portuguese.

The importance of literature in translation is that it connects American readers to the global world, to stories that cross borders, culture, language, that foster empathy and understanding of others, of each other, but also understanding of history, the past, but also the present moment and all of the issues and questions that preoccupy us as we go in our day to day. It's a very special award. Mia represents the-- he is a representation of the spirit of this award.

Brian Lehrer: Mia, congratulations on winning this year's PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. A little bit of your story; I see your parents emigrated to Mozambique from Portugal in 1953 to escape Antonio Salazar's fascist regime, and you were born there two years later. Would you like to tell us a little bit about your early life in the context of how it influenced you to become a writer?

Mia Couto: Yes. I was born in Beira, it's at the center of Mozambique. It was a small town at that time, and it was like all these cities, the colonial cities in Mozambique, very racially divided and socially. I was, of course, born in a white zone or the zone for the white guys. It was impossible to expel Africa from the place. The majority, 99% of the Mozambicans are Blacks, so at that time, it was the same. I'll just cross two streets and there were the other cultures, other languages.

There's more than 28 different indigenous language in Mozambique. I learned from the beginning that I should cross those borders. I should belong to some other place, some other world. As Clarisse was saying, I feel myself as a translator, I'm translating those cultures. I feel that it's not a drama to share- not become divided, I'm not divided, to share some different cultures inside me.

Brian Lehrer: I see that in 1974, the Portuguese military helped Salazar's successors overthrow his government, and that precipitated the independence of several of Portugal's colonies in Africa, including Mozambique, and then you, at 17, decided to join the revolution. Would you tell us a little bit about that part of your life?

Mia Couto: I was in Maputo, the capital, at that time, to study medicine. There was just one university for all the country. In that moment I knew that I was not really born to be a doctor. I joined the struggle in not formally way. It's an underground situation because the fascist regime was still going on. From then until '86, I was a member of National Liberation Front, but then I finished that relationship because I was not anymore a believer of, not the cause, but of the truth of that fight.

Brian Lehrer: Your first novel, written in 1992, is about an old man and a boy who are refugees of the civil war in Mozambique in the 1980s, and they seek shelter in a burnt out bus. What happens next? What is it about the civil war that you wanted to convey with this novel, I should say considered your breakout novel?

Mia Couto: At that time I didn't understood that was-- I was not writing about the war. You cannot talk about war while it's still going on. I was talking about something that was really beyond that violence. That was the search for a unique identity for something that is a very diverse identity. We are building a nation on the top of different nations, ancient nations. There was a kind of silent violence around us and we were not understanding that violence was not so visible, but there was a real cause of the war. In the book, I'm proposing the acceptance of this diversity of cultures, language and religion in a single space.

Brian Lehrer: Clarisse, are you honoring Mia at the PEN America Literary Awards tonight because of his writing being great writing and also in the context of Mozambique in particular, or is it partly because you see more universal themes that might relate to the world situation today?

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf: Well, let me also just clarify, Brian, this is a great question. Mia and actually all of our other nominees, finalists, and then soon-to-be-announced winners are chosen by a panel of judges, and these judges are their peers. They are writers. They are basically honoring and giving back by serving as judges and honoring the craft, honoring literature and the power of literature.

This is not an award. This one and all of our awards are not driven by the idea that we're making a point or taking a stand on one issue or the other. The essence of the Literary Awards program for us at PEN is to really animate our mission at PEN America, which is to celebrate literature. We actually believe that there is power in literature and that we turned to literature for understanding the world that we live in. Also writers, we turn to writers, are playing an essential role in our society in terms of protecting democratic values, free speech and free expression values.

This is just core of our mission as PEN America. I see the Literary Awards program as animating that mission. I think we're honoring Mia because he is an extraordinary storyteller. He's way with words, his mastery of the craft is what makes him our winner this year for this special award.

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad you mentioned the larger context of the event tonight. Mia happens to be our guest along with you, but in addition to Mia, I'll tell the listeners, PEN America also honored Lebanese American playwright Mona Mansour with the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award and Charles H. Rowell, founder of Callaloo, a journal celebrating writers and visual artists of African descent worldwide, the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing there, as well as, as you say, others who were nominated in various categories whose identities will be revealed tonight, which is part of why you call it the Literary Oscars.

The through line is that this is the 61st annual award ceremony from PEN America and you center the right for free expression. What do you want to say about how free expression is doing in the United States or in the world in 2025 even compared to 2024?

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf: Well, it will not surprise anyone and you, Brian, because of what you cover on your show. These are troubling times, not just in the United States, but also around the world. At PEN America, we are meeting the moment. Because we document and research these issues, what we know is that around the world, writers are persecuted and imprisoned as never before. In our annual Freedom to Write Index on imprisoned writers, we found a 10% increase. That means that more than 375 writers are behind bars in 40 different countries and many more are punished for their speech in other ways.

I would also say that we just published a report on the first 100 days of the administration, the new administration, and we call it a five-alarm fire on free speech, free expression, education, the right to protest and other basic rights. There's also a war against ideas and language. This one hit close to home for PEN America. When you have a list of more than 350 words and phrases that are being allegedly scrubbed from government websites or government documents, this is an attack on language and this is a slippery slope as we know from watching this happen around the globe at different times in history.

This is, I think, the moment PEN is very much at the forefront of documenting, speaking out on what's happening, but also centering writers, what's happening to them, but also how we turn to them for solutions. Writers will be how we get through this moment, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: How do you navigate this at PEN for your own purposes? Because free expression isn't just a universal good that's warm and fuzzy to everybody. You've had your own controversies in one year for standing up too much for free expression-- as some people saw it, in some free expression that was widely deemed offensive, or last year, some people thought PEN didn't stand up enough in the context of Gaza. You're navigating a line too that that isn't, I guess, always crystal clear.

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf: Well, yes and no, maybe. I think what's crystal clear is that PEN defends the freedom to write for all writers. To me, that's crystal clear. You're absolutely right, Brian, that it becomes hard work, complicated work, because if we commit to defending that principle of free speech and the freedom to write for all, that means that we have to defend speech that we might find either offensive or hateful, problematic, discriminatory, butt that should not be what informs our work around that principle of defending free speech. It is complicated.

I just want to say this organization, PEN America, is 103-year-old. Baked in its DNA is the idea that we welcome dissent, and that we need more speech, we need dialogue, we need tough conversations. We just had a four-day World Voices Festival of International Literature that ended last Saturday that was wonderful, a hundred writers in New York City gathering and being in dialogue with each other and with the audience members.

The idea is that you come to a World Voices Festival and you are engaged, you're learning, you're curious. You might walk away disagreeing with one of the speakers, but you were exposed to other ideas, to another way of thinking, to another perspective on an issue that you care about. I think that that, in plain terms, is what our work is about, and that's what it means to a hard work of defending freedom of expression for all writers here in the United States, but also across the world.

Brian Lehrer: Mia Couto, as a writer being honored by PEN America tonight, you also have at least one fan, I'm sure more than one, but one who has just written in from our audience, who wrote, "I have been a fan of Mia Couto ever since I first encountered him in a port Portuguese language class in college. He wrote a short story called A Fogata-" I don't know if I'm saying that right, "-or The Fire, which has stayed with me ever since I read it 15 years ago." It's nice to know you have some fans, people who actually read your books, right?

Mia Couto: Thank you. Yes, I'm very happy. I remember the story. It's one of the first short stories that I wrote.

Brian Lehrer: Where do you live now?

Mia Couto: I live in Mozambique, at the capital, Maputo. I'm still working as a biologist. I'm not just a writer. I'm also a serious person. I work as a biologist. I still have that work and it is part of my life. I cannot distinguish between doing biology and doing literature.

Brian Lehrer: Wait, don't put writing and serious work in other categories, otherwise we're going to get all kinds of protests from our listeners.

Mia Couto: I was joking.

Brian Lehrer: Are you following the news from Mozambique, news from the United States, news from outside your country? Does what's going on in this country today affect Mozambique? Is there anything you want to say?

Mia Couto: We are in a curious situation because we have elections. In the beginning of the year, there was very violent-- in many stations and a reaction against results. It was a kind of a war. I was obliged to escape for almost one month from the situation inside the country, but I come back and now everything is in order. This is something that we are referring during this debate is the need of a dialogue, a permanent and real dialogue, between different points of view.

Brian Lehrer: As in so many places and as Clarisse was really just articulating. What are you working on now? Are you writing anything?

Mia Couto: Yes, I'm writing a new novel. I'm always thinking that when I finish to write and I publish something, it's the last one. I published very recently, 8 or 10 months ago. I'm really engaged in the new story that is more than 10 chapters already written.

Brian Lehrer: You say news story, engaged in a news story? Oh, a new story?

Mia Couto: It will be a new novel. It's the first time I know the the end of the story.

Brian Lehrer: The 2025 PEN America Literary Awards ceremony kicks off at 7:30 PM tonight at the Town Hall in Midtown. We'll have a link for tickets on our show page at wnyc.org/brianlehrer. Any last thing you want to say about tonight's event, Clarisse, including can people stream it, or do they need to go in person if they're interested?

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf: We are a very democratic event. It is a literary award ceremony. It is a fancy affair. The stars are the writers, but it's open to all. It's in the wonderful theater of the Town Hall. You can come in. Ticket starts at $15. It's really a community gathering of readers and writers and our literary arts community in New York City, so I invite everyone who doesn't have plans. It's New York City, but who knows. If you don't have plans for tonight, join us at the Town Hall. If you can't join us in person, you can certainly stream the ceremony. It will be on our website at pen.org.

Brian Lehrer: Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, interim co-CEO of PEN America and Mia Couto, author and recipient of this year's PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. Thank you for giving us some time-

Mia Couto: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: -on the morning of the event.

Mia Couto: Thank you very much.

Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf: Thank you.

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