The New York Times An awards ceremony that was supposed to honor a novel by a Palestinian author at the Frankfurt Book Fair next week was canceled on Friday the 13th “due to the war in Israel,” according to the German newspaper Litprom Literaturverein, which sponsors the prize organized.
In a statement, Litprom added that the decision was made together with the book’s author, Adania Shibli. The novel, called “A Minor Matter” in English, tells the true story of the rape and murder of a Palestinian Bedouin girl in 1949 by Israeli soldiers, according to German publisher Berenberg Verlag.
A German version translated from the Arabic original was published in 2022 and an earlier English translation was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and the 2021 International Booker Prize.
Palestinian writer Adania Shibli Photo: Portal
The aim of the ceremony was to recognize the novel for winning the LiBeraturpreis 2023, a German literary prize given annually to an author from Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Arab world and presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the industry’s largest meetings. is awarded. Global Editorial. .
The controversy in Germany surrounding the novel began recently when Ulrich Noller, a journalist on the Litprom jury, resigned over the decision to award the literary prize to Shibli’s novel. A literary critic at Tageszeitung, a leftwing German newspaper, reignited the debate this week, accusing the book of portraying “the state of Israel as a killing machine,” even as other German critics have praised the novel.
The IsraelHamas war sparked longstanding disagreements among German cultural institutions over support for Israel. In 2020, dozens of the country’s major cultural groups expressed concerns that they could be accused of antiSemitism because of their ties real or perceived to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, known as BDS. The German Bundestag has labeled BDS antiSemitic and called on German states, which provide the majority of arts funding in the country, to deny subsidies to groups or individuals who “actively support” the campaign.
Jürgen Boos, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, said in a statement that the organization strongly condemns Hamas’s “barbaric terror against Israel,” adding: “Our thoughts are with the victims, their families and everyone who suffers from this war .”
Politics sometimes played a large role at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which in 2017 became a stage for European leaders to battle rising farright parties and faced a boycott from Iran in 2015 when Salman Rushdie attended the event (Rushdie is expected to return). the fair this year).
In the statement, Boos said that organizers “spontaneously decided to create additional stage moments for Israeli voices at the fair.”
The event takes place from October 18th to 22nd. Litprom said it was looking for a “suitable format and environment” to hold the awards ceremony after the fair ends.