About 20 North Korean defectors in South Korea will push to become members of an internationally recognized writers’ association later this year, an official said Monday.

PEN International is scheduled to hold its congress in South Korea’s ancient city of Gyeongju in September where the issue of accepting North Korean defectors as members is expected to be discussed and approved, according to Kim Kyung-sik, secretary general of PEN Korea in Seoul.

PEN International, the London-based worldwide association of writers, advocates freedom of expression and its members include writers, journalists and translators.

The non-governmental organization has 144 autonomous PEN centers in more than 100 countries around the world. Kim said the defectors will form the Independent North Korean International PEN if their request is approved in September.

One of the defectors is Kang Chol-hwan, a reporter for the local newspaper Chosun Ilbo who defected to South Korea in 1992 after spending a decade in Yoduk political prison camp, according to Kim.

Kang is the author of “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” a first-hand journal based on his experiences in a North Korean gulag. In 2005, then U.S. President George W. Bush met with Kang at the White House. 

(Yonhap News)