John Ralston Saul is a Canadian author and the president of;PEN International, an association of writers committed to free expression and developing a global community. Saul was president of Canadian PEN from 1990 to 1992, and was one of the driving forces in the creation of the Canadian PEN Writers in Exile Network in 2004. He has testified before the European Parliament Human Rights Commission on the loss of freedom of expression in Tunisia and has spoken before the European Council on refugees in exile. Saul has published numerous essays and five books, including “Voltaire’s Bastards:The Dictatorship of Reason in the West” and “The Collapse of Globalism.”