Vaclav Havel Center Announces Winner of 2026 ‘Disturbing the Peace’ Award

We are proud to announce Pham Doan Trang as the 2026 recipient of the Disturbing the Peace Award to a Courageous Writer at Risk, marking the 10th anniversary of the award.
A Vietnamese writer, journalist, publisher, and advocate for democratic freedoms and human rights, Pham Doan Trang is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence in Vietnam following her conviction for “conducting propaganda against the State.” Through her writing and activism, she has continued to defend freedom of expression despite years of harassment, persecution, and imprisonment. In honoring Pham Doan Trang, the Vaclav Havel Center recognizes both her remarkable courage and the enduring power of the written word to challenge repression and defend human dignity.

About the Award

The VHC’s annual Disturbing the Peace Award for a Courageous Writer at Risk honors writers who, like Václav Havel, demonstrate a passionate commitment to human rights and have faced persecution for their beliefs. The award celebrates exceptional courage in dissent and artistic integrity. It includes a $5,000 cash prize and brings international attention to those risking their freedom for the written word.

Nominations are submitted each year by human rights and literary organizations worldwide. A shortlist is then reviewed by the VHC’s Award Committee and evaluated by a distinguished international jury of writers, scholars, and former awardees.

Jury Comments

Salil Tripathi, former Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee and current board member of PEN International, added: 

“The brave Vietnamese writer and human rights defender Pham Doan Trang writes with the clarity of someone who has always known that silence is not an option. She has paid for that clarity with her freedom, and still her words carry further than the walls meant to contain them. Vaclav Havel understood that the dissident’s power lies not in force but in refusal — the simple, stubborn act of naming things as they are. Pham Doan Trang has lived that refusal, word by word, essay by essay, arrest by arrest, and in doing so has shown what it means to disturb the peace of the powerful.”

John Shattuck, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, 1993-98 & US Ambassador to the Czech Republic, 1998-2001, commented: 

“Pham Doan Trang uses plain-spoken eloquence to describe the suppression of freedom.  She has suffered the unjust consequences of speaking truth to power.   Her life and her writings are a shining example of Vaclav Havel’s Power of the Powerless, in which he proclaims that “[t]ruth does not operate politically because it commands obedience, but because it awakens recognition.”  Havel celebrates the moral power of dissent in words that succinctly express why Pham Doan Trang has been chosen to receive the 2026 Disturbing the Peace Award: “The dissident articulates [her] dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.”

Maksim Znak, lawyer, writer, academic, and 2025 Disturbing the Peace Award laureate commented:

“Phạm Doan Trang confirmed the message of her writing by her actions: she proved ready to sacrifice everything she had for the sake of her ideals, understanding the risks and calmly asking to use the threats to the benefits of her mission. That is the real power of a prominent writer, and that is what living in truth actually means.”

About Pham Doan Trang

Pham Doan Trang is a Vietnamese author, journalist, and democracy activist. She has published numerous books, including Chính trị bình dân (Popular Politics, 2018), Cẩm nang nuôi tù (Handbook on Supporting Prisoners, 2019), Phản kháng phi bạo lực (Non-Violent Opposition, 2019). As a result of her writing and publishing work, Trang was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for ‘spreading propaganda against the state’.

Award History

The Disturbing the Peace Award was established in 2016 to honor Václav Havel’s legacy as a playwright, dissident, and statesman. Past recipients include:

  • Maksim Znak (2025)
  • Arundhati Roy and Toomaj Salehi (2024)
  • Alaa Abd El-Fattah (2023)
  • Andrey Kurkov (2022)
  • Dmitri Strotsev (2021)
  • Angel Santiesteban Prats (2020)
  • Aslı Erdoğan (2019)
  • Liao Yiwu (2018)
  • Burhan Sönmez (2017)
  • Ma Thida (2016)


The 2026 Disturbing the Peace Award Jury was composed of:
Salil Tripathi, former Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee and current board member of PEN International
Maksim Znak, lawyer, writer, academic, and 2025 Disturbing the Peace Award laureate
Jessica Ní Mhainín, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Index on Censorship
Barbora Bukovská, Senior Director for Law and Policy at ARTICLE 19
John Shattuck, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, 1993-98 & US Ambassador to the Czech Republic, 1998-2001

For More Information

For further information contact at dtp@havelcenter.org

Press release: DISTURBING THE PEACE Award 2026 Vaclav Havel Center