John Ralston Saul is a Canadian author and a champion of free expression. He is president of PEN International, an association of writers committed to free expression and developing a global community. He campaigned on the need to pay attention to smaller and endangered languages and cultures, specifically emphasizing endangered indigenous languages. Saul helped create the Canadian PEN Writers In Exile Network and has received many awards for his writing, which include Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West and The Collapse of Globalism. His books have been translated into 22 languages in 30 countries.

About

John Ralston Saul is an award-winning author, philosopher, and champion of free expression. He has had an important impact on political and economic thought through his writing, which has been translated into 22 languages in 30 countries. He is the President of PEN International, an association of tens of thousands of writers, with 144 centers in 105 countries.

Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, Saul travelled continuously with guerrilla armies, spending time in North Africa and Southeast Asia. During his travels, he witnessed severe curtailing of freedom of expression, which led him to become interested in the work of PEN International, an association of writers committed to freedom of expression and developing a global community. He was president of Canadian PEN from 1990 to 1992, and was one of the driving forces in the creation of the Canadian PEN Writers in Exile Network in 2004. Saul is also an active member of Centre Québécois du PEN International, and was elected president of PEN International in October 2009. Prior to his election to the presidency, Saul campaigned for the need to protect endangered languages, especially indigenous languages. He argues that literature and freedom of expression go hand-in-hand, and that the loss of language signals the removal of freedom of expression.

Beyond PEN, Saul is also co-chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, founder and honorary chair of Le français pour l'avenir (French for the Future), and founder and chair of the La Fontaine-Baldwin Symposium, an organization that proposes an egalitarian and inclusive approach to democracy. He has testified before the European Parliament Human Rights Commission on the loss of freedom of expression in Tunisia and has spoken before European Council on refugees in exile.

Saul has published numerous essays and five novels. These include Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West and The Collapse of Globalism. His work addresses themes such as democracy, language and citizenship, individualism, self-determination, egalitarianism and the role of Aboriginal values in contemporary Canadian society. In much of his writing Saul has advocated for a search for humanist ideals, in which reason is balanced with common sense, ethics, intuition, creativity, and memory for the sake of the common good. Saul has received many national and international awards for his writing, including Chile's Pablo Neruda Medal, Canada’s Governor General's Literary Award, Italy's Premio Lettarario Internazionale and Korea’s Manhae Grand Prize for Literature. He was declared a “prophet" by Time magazine and is included in the prestigious Utne Reader’s list of the world’s 100 leading thinkers and visionaries.