Poet and playwright Lemn Sissay wins the 2019 PEN Pinter prize

Poet and playwright Lemn Sissay has won this year’s PEN Pinter prize, established in the memory of playwright and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter.

Sissay will officially receive the prize, which is awarded to writers who take an “unflinching, unswerving” look at the world, on October 10, according to the Guardian.

Sissay grew up in foster care and has been vocal about the mistreatment he suffered at the hands of staff — an experience that has colored his work as well as inspired it, most obviously in the form of his documentary about searching for his biological family.

The Pinter win places Sissay in the company of Margaret Atwood, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Salman Rushdie, and Tom Stoppard, among others.