Gaza Playwright Ali Abu Yasin Wins English PEN Award

London, United Kingdom – Ali Abu Yasin, a playwright from Gaza who has continued to write while war ravages the world around him, has been given a prestigious award in London.

"This award is not only big for me, but also for Gaza, Palestine and all Palestinian people," Ali Abu Yasin, whom the literary organization English PEN announced on Thursday as its 2026 "Writer of Courage," told Al Jazeera.

The 62-year-old began writing plays and learning the oud as a teenager in al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza, one of the largest camps in the Gaza Strip and a target of recent attacks.

"It is how I was born, I wanted to express myself through art from early childhood," he told Al Jazeera.

After the war began in October 2023, Abu Yasin stopped writing plays and turned to documenting life under Israeli airstrikes.

Abu Yasin said that during the first two years, he wrote about the situation in Gaza as Palestinians were displaced and feared for their lives.

"There is no theater left; there can be no theater because Gaza is being destroyed," the playwright said, shaking his head.

Since 2023, Israel has killed more than 74,000 people in Gaza, and most of those who survived have been displaced multiple times.

Abu Yasin works with actors who now rehearse their lines in makeshift tents, amid the sound of gunfire.

"I have come close to death four or five times. I have seen the people around me die. We live by luck, and those who died also died by luck," Abu Yasin told Al Jazeera.

"My son was trapped under the rubble; my house was bombed. So during those two years, I was just trying to bring some safety to my family. To protect them from starvation. And to document what is happening, so the world could hear my voice before I die."

After a pause, he wrote several film scripts, which he hid and carried with him throughout his displacement.

In 2004, Abu Yasin began working with the Said Al-Mishal Theater, a Palestinian cultural center in Gaza City that was flattened in Israeli bombing in 2018.

Leading playwrights and theater directors described that attack as "the erasure of a symbol of Palestinian culture and identity" in a letter to The Guardian.

In 2008, Abu Yasin began writing "Gaza Monologues," a series of works depicting life in Gaza, both its joyful and painful moments.

A few weeks ago, Abu Yasin left Gaza with the help of an artist residency program in France.

"I did not actually leave the war behind. The war lives in me, Gaza lives in me," he said.

He finds himself still saving every bit of water and limiting waste, habits formed by the humanitarian crisis.

The award ceremony coincided with his trip to France, allowing him to attend in person largely through a lucky coincidence. For English PEN, the privilege of holding the ceremony in person at the British Library is not taken for granted.

"For years, writers living in Gaza have been among the most restricted in the world in terms of freedom of movement. We are aware of this and of its direct impact on their freedom of expression," an English PEN spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

Abu Yasin's recent play, "50 Minutes," was performed in Gaza and deals with genocide and mourning. The actors rehearsed in a makeshift tent in a parking lot, many of them with no previous theater experience.

Abu Yasin was nominated by the British scholar and cultural critic Jacqueline Rose, who won the 2026 PEN Pinter Prize.

According to English PEN, the "Writer of Courage" award is "given to an author who has been active in the defense of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty, and who shares the PEN Pinter Prize with the winner."

The organization is the UK branch of PEN International, a global association of writers working to "defend freedom of expression and champion literature worldwide."

PEN America, its US counterpart, has been criticized in recent years, with some arguing it has not supported Palestinian writers. PEN America faced a wave of boycotts, leading its president to resign in 2025.

English PEN, which operates independently of the US organization, has joined PEN International in calling for an arms embargo on Israel and condemning the killing of Palestinian writers.

Rose described his work as "a call for justice, a cry of rage and a spiritual journey" in a news release.

"He is a consistent chronicler of the harshness and cruelty of Palestinian life, and a mentor to young people struggling to find meaning in the rubble of their lives."

Rose became well known for her 2005 book "The Question of Zion," a psychoanalytic analysis of Zionism.

Abu Yasin has three children and 16 grandchildren. All are in Gaza except his son, Amjad Abu Yasin, an actor who is in France.

"In Gaza, we have simple dreams. We want to live in peace and freedom. We want the sky and the sea to be open," he said. "We just want a little freedom."