“It was an inoperative board, there was a schism between the claims of the president and the rest, a continuous discussion,” says Andreu Gomila, a member of the PEN Català board. The situation had become untenable, the president and seven members of the board did not understand each other, until a few weeks ago they resigned en bloc: next Thursday there will be the annual assembly, and on July 13, an extraordinary one in which a new board.
Outside the doors, the PEN Català, the association of writers in Catalan for the defense of freedom of expression and persecuted writers, worked as normal: the centenary celebration with an exhibition at the Palau Robert and the publication of the book, campaigns of support for threatened writers, presence at institutional events or the exhibition of Ukrainian artists that premiered a few days ago at the Cercle Artístic Sant Lluc. But the procession went inside.
What happened? Manuel Guerrero, who has been a partner for many years and does not belong to the board, gives us background information: “The PEN has experienced a very difficult time due to the Carme Arenas case – the president who was denounced for considering that she appropriated money irregularly–, and even then there were those who defended a clean slate and who believed that for the health of the institution it was necessary to go to the end”, as has been done and the case is under trial. The following board took charge of that, with Àngels Gregori as president, from 2018 until now a year ago he resigned and proposed Laura Huerga for the position, who inherited his board: Manolo Gil as vice president, J.M. Vidal-Illanes and Gregori as vice presidents in the Balearic Islands and Valencia, Helena Pol as general secretary, Tona Català as treasurer and Ricard Ripoll, Josep Palomero, Miguel Ángel Llauger and Gomila as members.
They have not understood each other. Several board members point out that there are different ways of looking at things, and that perhaps meeting with a board they didn’t choose led to “personal disagreements.” Guerrero believes that “Huerga has done a lot of work, and surely he has also made mistakes, but part of the tensions can also come from the clash between a professionalized office that carries out day-to-day activities and a board with a different work rhythm and dynamics. that can lead to some misunderstanding”.
Huerga threatened to resign twice but the board believed that this was not a good time to think about the Arenas case, until on May 22 seven members of the board asked him by letter. Finally, the joint resignation and call for new elections was agreed, in which two candidacies are expected to present themselves. One headed by Huerga with Vidal-Illanes and Llauger from the previous board. The other, with the other seven members of the board, headed by a prestigious writer that they still do not want to make public.
The members of the resignation board take precautions when speaking because they do not want to harm the institution. “We don’t want controversy, because despite the problems this year there has been a lot of activity and very cool things,” says Huerga, who explains that despite the constant disagreements he approaches it “in a positive way, it’s an opportunity for the partners to choose where do you have to go”.
For Helena Pol, it all comes down to “we couldn’t work together because we have different ideas about the PEN.” In addition, she assures that “the activities of 2022 were previously scheduled. Manuel Guerrero and I have carried out the centenary exhibition and the catalogue, with the collaboration of members of the entity”.
After the resignation, there have been some public discussions about the possibility of electronic voting: Huerga sent a letter to the partners explaining that his proposal had been voted negative, which Gomila made public on social networks explaining that it is not that they are against it, but rather that they do not believe that a board in office has the legitimacy to agree on it and that it is hasty because the census is not up to date. Huerga assures that the census is not so out of date and that it can be done.
Next week, the assembly will begin to speak.
Catalan version here
