The PEN/Pinter Prize will be awarded annually to a British writer or a writer resident in Britain of outstanding literary merit who, in the words of Harold Pinter's Nobel speech, casts an "unflinching, unswerving" gaze upon the world, and shows a "fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies."

The inaugural PEN/Pinter Prize is being judged by Lisa Appignanesi, the President of English PEN; Antonia Fraser, Pinter's widow and former President of English PEN; playwright Tom Stoppard, broadcaster Mark Lawson and Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre. It will be presented Oct. 14 at the British Library, which holds Pinter's archives. The winner will make an acceptance speech inspired by Pinter's life and work. The shortlist will not be published.

The winner will receive a cheque for £1,000, and a limited-edition bound copy of their speech, donated by Faber & Faber. There will also be a further £1,000 to be awarded to an imprisoned writer of conscience, to be selected by the winner in consultation with English PEN's Writers in Prison Committee.

Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize-winning dramatist, screenwriter, and poet, was a Vice President of English PEN and active in the organization's many campaigns on behalf of imprisoned or persecuted writers who suffered at the hands of their regimes.

In a press statement, Antonia Fraser said, "I am delighted to support this prize in Harold's name, which celebrates his long association with English PEN and recognizes the courage of writers, both in this country and overseas, who, like him, have made a principled stand for writers' freedoms." Lisa Appignanesi commented, "We are thrilled to launch the PEN/Pinter Prize in memory of Harold Pinter, not only himself a writer of genius, but one who was actively engaged in defending the value of the whole enterprise of literature, too often threatened by those who would silence the always unpredictable force of words and ideas."