Jennifer Clement (born 1960) is an American-Mexican author. In 2015, she was elected as the first woman president of PEN International, an organization that was founded in 1921. Under her leadership, the groundbreaking PEN International Women's Manifesto and The Democracy of the Imagination Manifesto were created. She also served as President of PEN Mexico from 2009 to 2012. Clement's books have been translated into 36 languages. Clement is the author of four novels: Gun Love, Prayers for the Stolen, A True Story Based on Lies and The Poison That Fascinates. She also wrote the cult classic memoir Widow Basquiat and has published several volumes of poetry including The Next Stranger with an introduction by W. S. Merwin. Her most recent novel, "Auf de Zunge", is published by Suhrkamp in Germany in April 2022. Early life Born in 1960 in Greenwich, Connecticut, Clement moved in 1961 with her family to Mexico City, where she later attended Edron Academy. She moved to the United States to finish high school at Cranbrook Kingswood School, before studying English Literature and Anthropology at New York University. She received her MFA from the University of Southern Maine. She is the co-director and founder, with her sister Barbara Sibley, of the San Miguel Poetry Week. Clement lives in Mexico City, Mexico. Career Clement's first book, Widow Basquiat, is a memoir about artist Jean-Michel Basquiat's relationship with his muse Suzanne Mallouk—told from Mallouk's perspective. It was originally published in 2000 and re-released in 2014 as Widow Basquiat: A Love Story. Glenn O'Brien in Artforum wrote: "Magical…Widow Basquiat conjures real characters, a real time and real place. It's not theory – it's representation. … The life of Basquiat … is a joyous lightning bolt when it is described in true detail, as it is in Clement's extraordinary as-told-to poem." Her first novel, A True Story Based on lies, was finalist in the Orange Prize for Fiction. Prayers for the Stolen came out in 2014 and became a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Book, First Selection for National Reading Group Month's Great Group Reads and appeared internationally on many "Best Books of the Year" lists, including The Irish Times. She is also the author of several books of poetry: The Next Stranger with an introduction by W. S. Merwin (1993), Newton's Sailor, Lady of the Broom (2002) and Jennifer Clement: New and Selected Poems (2008). Her prize-winning story