The PEN American Center has elected writer and lecturer Andrew Solomon to serve as its new president.

Solomon, who is a dual national and lives in both New York and London with his husband and son, has received several awards for his books; his most recent book, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, received the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction, the J. Anthony Lukas award, the Anisfield-Wolf Award, the Wellcome Book Prize, and many others.

In addition to his books, Solomon has been a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, and periodically, he has also written for the New Yorker.

“This is an urgent time for issues of free expression, and a critical time for PEN,” said Solomon, in a recent press release. “In the wake of Charlie Hedbo, revelations about surveillance in the United States, international assaults on open dialogue for gay people, and restrictions on press and Internet in many countries worldwide, our mission could not be more clear: free speech is under siege and its defenders cannot rest... I am proud to step in as president of this increasingly crucial organization as it strives to construct a nobler, more just world.”

Solomon will be taking the place of nonfiction writer Peter Godwin, who held his presidential position for three years, and was a leader on issues such as NSA surveillance, net neutrality, and championing feminist poetry.

A full list of PEN’s 2015 Board of Trustees is available at the PEN website.