Writer Wins Freedom Award

Warsaw Voice - 29 November 2006

This year's Freedom of Expression awards, handed out by the International PEN Club and Oxfam Novib for activities promoting human rights, were presented in Amsterdam Nov. 18. Among the five winners of the prestigious award is longtime freelance contributor to The Warsaw Voice Simon Mol, a poet, journalist and playwright who has been living in Poland for seven years. Mol got the award for his theater and literary activities promoting the rights of Africans in Poland. He has founded the Migrator Theater, with a multinational ensemble composed of immigrants, mainly from Africa.

Mol (whose full name is Simon Moleke Njie) comes from Cameroon. He fled Africa after publishing articles about corruption scandals in his country. Mol is an honorary member of the English, Norwegian, Ghanaian and Polish PEN Clubs and the author of several plays, two collections of poetry, as well as short stories and articles published in various countries, including Britain, India and the United States. He plans to publish his new book, Broń zimnej wojny (Weapons of the Cold War), this year, a collection of stories set in Poland and Africa.

The other Freedom of Expression winners were Andrei Dynko (Belarus), Roya Toloui (Iran/Kurdistan), Faraj Bayrakdar (Syria) and Hrant Dink (Turkey).