The PEN American Center recently named biographer Ron Chernow as its new president. He succeeds novelist Salman Rushdie, who served a two-year term. Chernow, who joined PEN in 1990, won the National Book Award for his biography of J.P. Morgan, The House of Morgan (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990). His biographies Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (Random House, 1998) and Alexander Hamilton (Penguin, 2004) were both nominees for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The PEN American Center is an affiliate of International PEN, the literary and human rights organization founded in 1921. In the past several years, the PEN American Center has campaigned for freedom of expression and open cultural exchange, calling for protections on freedom of speech and lobbying Congress to amend the Patriot Act to protect the privacy of bookstore and library records.
