Thirteen popular books have been banned from all public schools in Utah in the first wave of bans expected under a new law that prohibits books when at least three of the state’s 41 school district boards claim they contain pornographic or indecent material.

PEN America gathered Thursday night for its annual gala, a high-profile event raised even higher because some wondered if it would be held at all.

Paul Simon’s latest honor places him among public figures well outside the music industry.

Judy Blume, James Patterson and Michael Connelly are among 24 prominent writers who have raised more than $3 million to help PEN America open a center in Miami and expand it efforts to counter Florida’s surge in book bannings in recent years.

A conversation over banning certain books in school libraries is heating up after two sexually explicit books were removed from a Lexington middle school.

The PEN America rights group says award-winning Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina has died from her injuries suffered after a Russian missile attack on a popular restaurant last week.

A specially commissioned, unburnable edition of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” has been auctioned for $130,000, Sotheby’s announced Tuesday.

From an imprisoned Ukranian journalist to a high school activist in Florida, PEN America paid tribute Monday night to democracy and free expression and warned about the dangers faced in the U.S. and abroad.

The wave of book bannings around the country has reached a level not seen for decades.

The founder of Audible Inc., a leading force in the booming audiobook industry, will be honored in May at PEN America’s annual gala.

FILE - Playwright George C. Wolfe attends a special screening of "Fences", in New York on Dec. 19, 2016. Wolfe and the Canadian poet-translator Anne Carson are among this years winners of PEN America awards for career achievement. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)NEW YORK – Tony Award-winner George C. Wolfe and Canadian poet-translator Anne Carson are among this year's winners of PEN America awards for career achievement. Ad“Among this year’s winners are revolutionaries, icons, and trailblazers,” PEN America’s Jane Marchant, director of the Literary Awards program, said in a statement. “By poetry, translation, screenwriting, dramaturgy, performance writing, and the art of editing, these honorees transform the arc of the literary canon and infuse it with striking originality.”The winners will formally receive their awards during an April 8 ceremony.

NEW YORK – Former President Barack Obama, already a million-selling author, is also a prize-winning author. During the ceremony, Obama and historian Ron Chernow, a former PEN board president, will discuss freedom of expression and the importance of truth in a world of misinformation. Obama’s previous books include “Dreams from My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.”“As an organization of writers, we have always seen President Obama not just as a leader, but as one of us: an author. His probing and evocative narratives helped introduce the world to his unique background, and the power of his life experience as a prompt toward a more pluralistic and encompassing society,” PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement. PEN presented its first Voice of Influence Award in 2019 to filmmaker Ava DuVernay.

The teenager who recorded the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May will be honored in December by PEN America, the literary and human rights organization. Darnella Frazier will be presented the PEN/Benenson Courage Award. The 17-year-old Frazier will share the Courage Award with Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was pushed out by the Trump administration. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, PEN had postponed its annual gala from May 19, six days before Floyd’s death, to Dec. 8, and will host the event online. “Darnella Frazier took an enormous amount of flak in the wake of releasing the video,” Nossel told The Associated Press.

NEW YORK – The teenager who recorded the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May will be honored in December by PEN America, the literary and human rights organization. The 17-year-old Frazier will share the Courage Award with Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was pushed out by the Trump administration. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, PEN had postponed its annual gala from May 19, six days before Floyd's death, to Dec. 8, and will host the event online. “Darnella Frazier took an enormous amount of flak in the wake of releasing the video,” Nossel told The Associated Press. We wanted to go back and recognize and elevate this singular act.”Others being honored by PEN in December include the author and musician Patti Smith and Chinese dissident Xu Zhiyong.

NEW YORK – Neil Gaiman, Anita Hill and Ann Patchett will be among the contributors to Book the Vote, an online initiative to provide information on the electoral system, voting registration and civic topics. Book the Vote is a collaboration among Penguin Random House, PEN America, the non-profit organization When We All Vote and the literary retailer Out of Print, which is owned by Penguin Random House. One feature is called “How America Works” and covers four topics: the right to vote, voting for the president, the Supreme Court and the electoral college. “Truth, facts, press freedom, and the future of open discourse are all on the ballot this November,” PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement. Noseel and Penguin Random House U.S. CEO Madeline McIntosh said they were pleased to be working together to provide credible and authoritative information about the U.S. election and voting rights.

NEW YORK Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese activist and legal scholar detained by the government since earlier this year, is being honored by PEN America. Xu's award comes on the 31st anniversary of the so-called Tiananmen Square Massacre, when Chinese soldiers shot and killed pro-democracy demonstrators. The 47-year-old Xu has strongly criticized Chinese leader Xi Jinping for his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. You didnt authorise the truth to be released, and the outbreak turned into a national disaster, Xu wrote in February, shortly before he was detained. PEN will highlight Xu's life and work at its annual gala, scheduled for December 8 in Manhattan after being postponed from May because of the coronavirus.

(CNN) - The decision to award Austrian writer Peter Handke a Nobel Prize in Literature has sparked widespread outrage, with critics calling it "shameful" that the award has been given to a "genocide denier." Handke won the Nobel "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience," according to the Swedish Academy, the cultural institution responsible for awarding it. CNN has contacted the Swedish Academy for comment. The Nobel Foundation told CNN that it "never comments upon the Prize awarding institutions' independent selections of Nobel Prize laureates." "It was very courageous by the Swedish Academy, this kind of decision," he told reporters, according to Reuters.