Livestream this talk for free on Saturday, July 19 at 5:30pm (MT)

The Sun Valley Writers’ Conference (SVWC) is pleased to announce that Salman Rushdie is the 2025 Writer in the World Prize recipient. At this year’s Conference, on Saturday, July 19 at 5:30pm (MT) in the Sun Valley Pavilion, this surprise speaker will be in conversation with National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann. This talk is open to 2025 Conference passholders only with restricted access and special security protocols in place, but free livestreaming is available at svwc.com/livestream. Those in Sun Valley, Idaho can purchase a pass to our Live Watch Party at The Argryos. For more information, visit svwc.com/witw.

The author of 25 fiction and nonfiction books, Rushdie has long been recognized around the world for his brilliant writing and his unfailing courage in defending freedom of speech, sometimes at the risk of his own safety. His latest book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, is a deeply personal account of enduring and surviving an attempt on his life in August of 2022. It is a love story written for his wife, Eliza, and all the doctors and physical therapists who helped him recover, along with his global community of readers and fellow writers.

We honor him above all for his amazing body of work, his indelible books of fiction and nonfiction, and for continuing to write them in the face of immeasurable opposition and danger. As you will see during his conversation with his fellow novelist and great friend Colum McCann, Salman Rushdie is many remarkable things, but above all, and always, he is a writer and a teller of stories, and a master at that.

The Writer in the World Prize was established in 2021 by SVWC board members. It recognizes a writer whose work expresses a rare combination of literary talent and moral imagination, helping us to better understand the world and our place in it. We honor the recipients of this prize—some of the greatest writers of our time—for their vast gifts to society and contributions to the global canon of literature. And, in keeping with a founding goal of the Conference, we celebrate the importance and lasting beauty of the written word in all its forms.

Past prize recipients include Barry Lopez (2021), Abraham Verghese (2023), and Margaret Atwood (2024). This $20,000 prize is funded by SVWC board members. Learn more at svwc.com/witw.

Photo Credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths