In response to receiving the PEN Pinter Prize this year, author Michael Rosen said he feels "greatly honored.".
The prize is given to authors with "outstanding literary merit" who present the world in an "unflinching" manner.
Rosen, who is well-known for popular children's books like We're Going On A Beat Hunt, has also written for younger readers on topics like immigration and the Holocaust.
The former children's laureate was hailed by Ruth Borthwick, chair of English PEN, as "one of our most tenacious and fearless writers.".
He is among the most important poets of our time who writes for young people, she said.
"In more than 140 books, he has defended a style of writing for kids that reflects their real-world experiences, using humor and wordplay to validate their creative modes of being and thinking. This style has also informed his succinct interventions into the lifeless way that kids are taught literacy in schools. ".
In 2021, Rosen wrote about the time hospital staff pinned a poem he had written in 2008 for the NHS's 60th anniversary above his bed, leaving him in a coma with Covid-19.
Borthwick continued, "Even Covid couldn't silence him!" he said, adding that the judges were "thrilled and honoured" to choose him as the winner.
English PEN, a nonprofit organization that claims to support free speech and promote literature, established the award in 2009 in honor of playwright and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter.
According to Rosen, 77, being successful reminded him of "the many people all over the world who are incarcerated, tortured, or executed for having the courage to write about what they perceive to be injustice.".
After serving as the children's laureate from 2007 to 2009, Rosen is now a professor of children's literature at Goldsmiths, University of London.
At a ceremony co-hosted by the British Library, he will receive the honor on October 11 and announce the "writer of courage" with whom he will share it.
Along with Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Tom Stoppard, and Carol Ann Duffy, previous winners of the award include Malorie Blackman, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Lemn Sissay.
