PHOTO CAPTION: IF Fellow Natalie Hopkinson shared a table at the author’s showcase at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. with activist Ralph Nader on November 2. This was one of more than a dozen such book discussions around the world in which she participated in 2018.

IF Fellow Natalie Hopkinson’s book, A Mouth is Always Muzzled: Six Dissidents, Five Continents and the Art of Resistance was longlisted for PEN America’s 2019 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award. Hopkinson was one of ten semi-finalists honored in a category for books that “exemplifies the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature.”

Muzzled originated in 2011 when IF Vice President Jeff Prudhomme suggested “The Future of the Arts & Society” as a topic for an IF report released in 2014. Through a collaboration with the New York-based publisher, The New Press, in Feb. 2018, a book-length treatment of the themes in the report was released. The book also received the Independent Publisher’s Association “Spirit Award,” and in 2018, Hopkinson participated in book discussion events in 11 cities including three overseas:  Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, Manhattan, Miami, San Francisco, Brooklyn, Washington, Havana, Cuba, London, U.K. Georgetown, Guyana.

The final winner for the $10,000 prize will be announced at the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on Feb. 26, 2019.