Jennifer Clement is an Emeritus President of PEN International and the only woman to hold the office (2015-2021) since the organization was founded in 1921. Under her leadership the groundbreaking PEN International Women’s Manifesto and The Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto were created.
Clement is the author the novels A True Story Based on Lies, The Poison That Fascinates, Prayers for the Stolen and Gun Love as well as several poetry books. Clement also wrote the acclaimed memoir Widow Basquiat on New York City in the early 1980’s and the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Clement recipient of many awards including the Canongate Prize, Sara Curry Humanitarian Award, the Gran Prix des Lectrices Lyceenes de ELLE in France, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship and her books have twice been a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book. Prayers for the Stolen was both a PEN/Faulkner Prize and Femina Prize finalist and a New Statesman Book of the Year, picked by Kazuo Ishiguro. Her recent novel Gun Love was an Oprah Book Club Selection as well as being a National Book Award, Aspen Words Literary Prize finalist, and a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book. Time magazine, among other publications, named it one of the top 10 books of 2018. Clement’s books have been translated into more than 35 languages. Prayers for the Stolen has been made into a movie directed by Tatiano Huezo and has received several awards. Julie Taymor is the director and producer of the movie on the novel Gun Love and Steven Spielberg has bought the rights to Clement’s memoir Widow Basquiat.
