'The winner of the 2011 Golden PEN Award is Margaret Drabble. The award is given annually to an accomplished writer whose body of work has had a profound impact on readers and who is held in high regard by fellow writers and the literary community. It is also important that the recipient’s ethos is consistent with, and supportive of, the values upheld by English PEN.'What, we are tempted to ask, is a writer's 'ethos'? Looking at past winners, a shared ethos is hardly obvious: Salman Rushdie, J.G. Ballard, Josephine Pullein-Thompson, Michael Holroyd, Doris Lessing and Harold Pinter...


The Trustees of English PEN know what it is, and they 'represent a membership of more than one thousand writers and literary professionals'. Drabble receives the pen, a real gold pen, and £1000, at PEN's annual Christmas Party.

Gillian Slovo, President of English PEN said, 'I am absolutely delighted that Margaret Drabble is going to join the list of wonderful writers to be awarded the Golden PEN.' (She's hardly going to say anything else, is she.) 'We awarded it to her for two of the best reasons: her work on behalf of other writers and for PEN, and her brilliant career as a novelist. She is our perfect combination of art and conscience – a role model whom we can all aspire to match.' Some writers who admire the 'conscience' of this writer are less certain about the brilliance of the novelist's career.