PEN Club Day

What Is PEN Club Day?

Every November 26th is "PEN Club Day" (ペンの日, Pen no Hi) in Japan. On November 26, 1935, the Japanese PEN Club (日本ペンクラブ) was established in Tokyo; the club designated the day in 1965, its 30th anniversary. It is Japan's center of the international PEN organization (originally standing for Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists, now simply PEN International). The founding of the Japanese PEN Club brought Japan into the global community of writers dedicated to the principle of freedom of expression and the promotion of literature across cultural boundaries.

PEN International

PEN International was founded in London in 1921 by novelist Amy Dawson Scott, with the intention of creating a worldwide community of writers who would promote friendship and intellectual cooperation across national boundaries and advocate for freedom of expression. The "P" stands for Poets and Playwrights; the "E" for Essayists and Editors; the "N" for Novelists. PEN now has over 150 national centers worldwide and is recognized as one of the world's most important organizations in defense of writers' rights, particularly those at risk of persecution for their work.

Japan's Literary Community

The Japanese PEN Club was founded with the participation of many of Japan's leading literary figures of the mid-1930s, with the poet and novelist Shimazaki Tōson as its first president. Later presidents have included Shiga Naoya, Kawabata Yasunari, Inoue Yasushi, Endō Shūsaku and Asada Jirō, and in 2021 Kirino Natsuo became its first woman president. Its establishment in 1935 — as Japan was moving toward the militarism that would eventually lead to WWII — was an act of cultural internationalism that contrasted with the growing nationalism of the era. The club was temporarily suspended during the war years and reestablished in the postwar period, when it resumed its role in Japan's literary community and international cultural exchange.

Japan's Literary Culture

Japan has one of the world's richest literary cultures, with a history of prose and poetry stretching back over a millennium. Modern Japanese literature — from the Meiji era writers who grappled with modernization to the postwar novelists who processed defeat and reconstruction, to contemporary writers who engage with globalization and social change — is internationally recognized, with multiple Nobel Prize laureates in Literature (Yasunari Kawabata in 1968, Kenzaburō Ōe in 1994) and a rich tradition of literary journalism, criticism, and prize culture that sustains a serious reading public.

Fun Facts

• Akutagawa Prize: Japan's most prestigious literary prize for emerging fiction writers — the Akutagawa Prize (芥川賞, established 1935, the same year as the Japanese PEN Club) — is announced twice yearly to enormous media attention, with winning books routinely becoming bestsellers.
• Haruki Murakami: Japan's most internationally translated contemporary novelist, Haruki Murakami, has been widely discussed as a Nobel Prize candidate for many years, reflecting the international stature of contemporary Japanese literature.