For Immediate Release

Contact: Judith Platt/Deidre Huntington

Ph: 202-220-4551/202-220-4550

Cambodian Literary Project and Its Founder to Receive Sixth Annual Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award

Washington, DC April 11, 2008:  Kho Tararith and the Nou Hach Literary Project which he directs have been named by the Association of American Publishers to receive this year’s Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award.  The Project, which has undertaken nothing less than the task of restoring the printed word as part of Cambodian culture, will be honored by the Association’s International Freedom to Publish Committee at the PEN American Center gala in New York on April 28.

The Nou Hach Literary Project, which began in 2002, supports the development of modern Cambodian literature in a country whose cultural and educational institutions, civil society, and tradition of reading were all but obliterated during the Khmer Rouge period.  It publishes an annual volume of prize-winning fiction, literary essays, and poetry, and holds an annual writers’ conference and workshop to recognize and support contemporary writers in Cambodia.  The Project also sponsors creative writing workshops in outlying provinces and has produced a series of radio programs on classical poetry.  The Project is made up of Cambodian artists, writers, librarians, scholars, and academics, along with international scholars who serve as advisors.

Some of the published works are critical of the Cambodian government and Nou Hach director Kho Tararith has been threatened and told to stop publishing, but the threats have not altered his commitment to keep publishing and to expand the Project.  He is actively encouraging young people to write and to appreciate the importance of freedom of expression. 

Thirty-four-year-old Tararith comes from a small village on the Thai border, and was the first member of his family to attend college.  After graduation he worked at a small literary organization and produced a radio program focusing on such issues as gender rights, drugs, and poverty in Cambodia, before co-founding the Nou Hach Literary Journal.

AAP International Freedom to Publish Committee Chair Hal Fessenden (Viking Penguin), who visited Cambodia several months ago, noted that: “While the situation is very bad, with illiteracy standing at 63 percent and a desperate lack of schools and books, efforts are underway to rebuild the educational system and cultural infrastructure and the Nou Hach Literary Project is one of the very bright spots. We’re delighted to be able to acknowledge Kho Tararith’s courage and dedication and the important work of the Nou Hach Literary Project.”

Created in 2002, the International Freedom to Publish Award recognizes a book publisher outside the United States who has demonstrated courage and fortitude in the face of political persecution and restrictions on freedom of expression. The award is named in honor of Jeri Laber, one of the founding members of the IFTPC and the committee’s professional advisor for almost three decades. Previous awards have gone to Iranian publisher Farkhondeh Hajizadeh, Indonesian publisher Joesoef Isak, Turkish publisher Abdullah Keskin, Egyptian publisher Mohamed Hashem, and last year to the entire beleaguered independent publishing community in Iran.

The IFTPC was founded in 1975 by the Association of American Publishers.  It was one of the first groups in the world formed specifically to defend and broaden the freedom of the written word and to protect and promote the rights of book publishers and authors around the world.  Among its activities, the committee monitors and publicizes free-expression issues around the world, sends fact-finding missions to countries where free expression is under siege, lobbies both at home and overseas on behalf of persecuted book publishers, and offers moral support and practical assistance to threatened publishers abroad.

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry. AAP’s approximately three hundred members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and nonprofit publishers, university presses, and scholarly societies. The defense of intellectual freedom at home and freedom of expression worldwide, the protection of intellectual property rights in all media, and the promotion of reading and literacy are among the association’s primary concerns.

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