Twitter CEO Dick Costolo To Receive PEN Award

By Amit Chowdhry ● Mar 20, 2014

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo will be receiving a PEN award on May 5th along with popular author Salman Rushdie. The award will be given on May 5th in New York at the annual gala that takes place at the PEN American Center. 

Costolo will receive the inaugural PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Digital Freedom Award for Twitter serving as a “powerful new tool” that serves as a vehicle for free expression worldwide. PEN has not decided who will present Costolo yet.

Rushdie will receive the PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award for “unparalleled courage.” Rushdie spent years in hiding after publishing the novel “The Satanic Verses” as he received death threats from the Iranian government. Nobel laureate Toni Morrison won the award in 2008 and will introduce Rushdie.