PEN International announces partnership with Moomin

President of PEN International, Jennifer Clement and the Creative Director of Moomin Characters Ltd, Sophia Jansson at the Helsinki Book Fair 2018

PEN International is delighted to announce its new partnership with Moomin Characters Ltd, the Finnish family company founded by writer and artist, Tove Jansson – famous for her Moomin books - and her brother Lars Jansson.  The collaboration is based on both organisations’ shared values and aims of promoting equality and freedom of expression.

Jennifer Clement, the President of PEN International said: “PEN International, unlike other freedom of expression organizations, believes in the power of literature to create social change. There is no doubt the Tove Jansson’s work and her values that support freedom of expression and independent views, has had an extraordinary impact on the world.”

Moomin Characters Ltd strives to underscore issues around equality and other social values highlighted by Tove Jansson in her Moomin books. Because of these shared values and in response to the difficult climate for free expression around the globe, the partnership will raise awareness of the increasing challenges writers face worldwide in exercising their right to free expression.

The partnership will have a particular focus in promoting the PEN International Women's Manifesto - a set of principles which aim to protect free expression for women by combating and eliminating the silencing of women worldwide, whether through censorship, harassment, or violence.

The Manifesto was developed in consultation with Kamila Shamsie, Gillian Slovo, Gaby Wood, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey OBE, Nina George, Lisa Appignanesi and Caroline Criado Perez among others, and approved unanimously at the Assembly of Delegates of PEN International’s 83rd World Congress in Lviv, Ukraine, on 21 September 2017.

To read the Manifesto in full click here.