Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov, who this year won the award of the American PEN Center named after Barbara Goldsmith "Freedom to write," wrote a letter for the guests of the ceremony.

The full text of the letter was unveiled in Facebook by Oleg Setsnov's sister Natalia Kaplan. In his message, the director, illegally sentenced by a Russian court to the age of 20 years of the colony, talks about how he is going through his imprisonment, and also about what he considers the most important thing in his life to be the time he spent with his close people.

"When I last visited the Maidan, where people were already dying, my mother said:" Why are you going there? After all, you have two children! ". I replied that that's why I'm going there - I do not want them to live in a country of slaves. We then won, but it turned out that not yet to the end. And the struggle continues, but without me. And I'm in prison and like any prisoner, it's very difficult for me to answer a simple childish question: "Daddy, when you come back!", Concluded Sentsov.

Ukrainian director Sentsov and activist Kolchenko detained by FSB agents in the Crimea in the spring of 2014. They were sent to Russia, where they were tried on a trumped-up charge of organizing terrorist attacks and arson of party offices on the peninsula. Both blamed not recognized.

On August 25, 2015, the North Caucasian District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don passed a guilty verdict against Sentsov. On the totality of crimes, the director was sentenced to 20 years in a strict-regime colony.