Sir Tom Stoppard to be honoured at US awards

British playwright Sir Tom Stoppard is set to be honoured next month by PEN America, the literary and human rights organisation.

PEN announced that Sir Tom will receive the 25,000 US dollars (£19,000) PEN/Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award for Leopoldstadt, a new work set in the Jewish quarter of early 20th century Vienna that the 82-year-old has said may be his last play.

The Nichols prize, established last year and named after the late film and stage director, was previously given to the playwright-filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan.

Canadian poet and fiction writer M NourbeSe Philip, whose books include the poetry collections Thorns and Salmon Courage – and the novel Looking for Livingstone, has won the PEN/Nabokov Award for international literature.

Others given the Nabokov award include Edna O’Brien and Philip Roth.

PEN will present the awards March 2 at Town Hall in Manhattan, with Seth Meyers serving as host.

Others receiving prizes will be The Call playwright Tanya Barfield, who will be given the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theatre Award, and Rigoberto Gonzalez, winner of the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry.

Gonzalez’s poetry books include Other Fugitives and Other Strangers and Black Blossoms.