100 Years of PEN International

PEN International, one of the world's best-known association of writers, celebrates its centenary this year. Since its inception, PEN centres have been established in more than one hundred countries around the world, including Liechtenstein in 1978. PEN International was founded after the First World War to promote peace and international understanding, with special emphasis on connecting many nations.

The association continues its campaign to uphold and enforce the right to freedom of expression. It takes a public stand against repression, censorship, imprisonment and assassination of writers and publicists. For the three special stamps, Philately Liechtenstein chose quotes from "Friedrich Schiller" (face value: CHF 1.00), "Emily Dickinson" (face value: CHF 1.50) and "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe" (face value: CHF 3.80) with certain words being blacked out. In this way, it wants to draw attention to the distorting and manipulative effect created by omitting information from texts. This becomes clear as soon as the blacked-out words on the stamp are scratched off, revealing the full quotes.