Des de 1922, defensem la llibertat d'expressió i els drets lingüístics, salvaguardem el patrimoni literari català i promovem el diàleg intercultural.
Since 2006, PEN Català has coordinated the Writers In Refuge Programme. This programme, with its roots in the Shelter Cities programme which was promoted by the International Parliament of Writers, aims to host a writer who is threatened, persecuted or at risk of being imprisoned as a consequence of their writing.
PEN Català promotes literary translation to overcome the linguistic barrier that prevents understanding between people and cultures. It works for both the promotion of Catalan literature in the world and to support the translation of universal literary works into Catalan. It is within this framework that the digital magazine Visat is published.
PEN is committed to the respect of all languages, and the protection and promotion of minority languages. PEN's central and guiding principles on linguistic rights are laid out in the Girona Manifesto, promoted by PEN Català.
PEN Català monitors human rights violations against writers, editors, translators and journalists around the world and organises campaigns to support them.
You can become a full member if you are a writer in any field, journalist, editor or translator and share the founding values of PEN.
If you are not a writer and want to join the defense of languages and freedom of expression, you can be part of the Circle of Friends of PEN.
Help us continue to defend language and freedom of expression.
Sí! El nostre web s'adapta a dispositius mòbils, però encara està en desenvolupament. Per veure-la ara correctament, consulta-la des d'una mida de pantalla major de 1100px ; )
Ciutat de procedència: Algeria
Ciutat d'acollida: Barcelona
Període d'acollida: 2007-2009
Obres destacades:
Les rêves de Yidir / Tirga n Yidir, Tafrara , Sol cec / Iṭij aderɣal, Jo soc l’estranger / Nekk d ajentaḍ
Salem Zenia is an Algerian journalist, writer and poet, and a Berber activist. He works for the Tamazight section of the regional newspaper Le pays/Tamurt. In 1998 he founded a biweekly newspaper, Racines/Iz’uran, aimed at the promotion of Berber literature. His activism led him to be one of the chief writers of the report on Culture and Artistic Development for the second seminar of the Berber Cultural Movement in 1989.
His literary work includes numerous journalistic pieces published in Algerian newspapers, including L’objectif démocratique, Awal, in addition to his first novel Tafrara (The Dawn): only the sixth novel to be published in its entirety in Berber. His most recent published titles are the novel L’arrel de la boira (The Root of Fog), published in 2014 by Lleonard Muntaner, with translation by Ricard Ripoll, and the Tamazight-Catalan poetry collection Jo soc l’estranger (I am the foreigner), published in Barcelona in 215 by Lapislàtzuli publishing house, with translation by Carles Castellanos. In collaboration with Carles Múrcia, he has published the Catalan-Tamazight / Tamazight-Catalan dictionary (Llibres de l’Índex, 2016) and participated in its digitisation.
In Paris in 2005, the Tamazight Association, an organisation for the defence and promotion of Berber culture and literature, awarded Zenia an Honorary Diploma in recognition of his body of work and his contribution to the development and diffusion of Tamazight literature. In Algeria, Salem Zenia was victim of a double persecution, by government authorities and by Islamist armed forces. A married father to two children, he decided to remain in Catalonia and has lived in Olot since 2014. He arrived in Catalonia in 2007 and was part of Catalan PEN’s Writers In Refuge programme until 2009, though continues working with the association on a regular basis.