The conflict between Israel and Palestine reaches the Frankfurt Book Fair, the most important in the world in the sector, which begins this Wednesday surrounded by controversy. The reason? The cancellation of this Friday’s ceremony in which the LiBeraturpreis award was going to be presented to the Palestinian writer Adania Shibli.
The Litprom association, which promotes foreign authors in the German language and grants this literary award, announced last Friday that the author will not receive hers within the framework of the fair, as initially planned. Shibli was to receive the award for A Minor Detail, which tells the true story of the rape and murder of a girl carried out by Israeli soldiers in 1949. The work was nominated for awards such as the Man Booker, the National Book Award and the International Booker Prize. In Spanish, it is published by Hoja de Lata publishing house, and is also available in English, French, Italian, Hebrew and Korean.
The Fair is “completely supportive of Israel,” its director, Jürgen Boos, stated a few days ago in a statement. The program was later reorganized to give a predominant place to Jewish voices.
The reactions did not take long to arrive, starting with Shibli herself who, although she has not made any public appearance for the moment, has spoken through her literary agency, which has stated to media such as The New York Times or The Guardian that the writer would have wanted to have “the opportunity to talk about the role of literature in turbulent times like the current one.” Her representative has also clarified that the decision to postpone the ceremony is not “consensual”, as had been initially said.
For its part, several Arab publishing groups have announced that they will boycott the fair and Malaysia has reported that it is withdrawing its presence due to “the pro-Israel attitude and open support of the organizers for Israel.” The authorities of this country have added in a statement that Israel’s attacks against Palestine violate “international laws and human rights” and showed their support for the Palestinian cause.
The world of literature and publishing has also expressed its disapproval. More than 600 people from the sector have signed an open letter of protest. Among them are the Nobel Prize winners Olga Tokarczuk and Abdulrazak Gurnah or the Canadian writer Naomi Klein, who denounce that the organizers “close the space to a Palestinian voice.”
The signatories ask for rectification and remember that “the Frankfurt Book Fair has the responsibility of creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings and reflections on literature in these terrible and cruel times, without closing them.”
Litprom insists that this is not a “questioning of the awarding of the prize to Adania Shibli” and has committed to finding “an appropriate format and framework for the event at a later time”, which has caused further uproar, as What the sector asks is that the delivery be within the framework of the fair.
At the time, the entity decided to award its award to the writer for her ability to “create a formally and linguistically rigorously composed work of art that speaks of the power of borders and what violent conflicts do to people.” But at the time a controversy arose after journalist Ulrich Noller, a member of the LiBeraturpreis jury, left in protest against the decision to award the book.
Although these frictions weigh on the hall, to the point that many voices have called for the resignation of its director, Juergen Boss, it is still a highly anticipated meeting, since it has been no more and no less than 75 years since the new fair of the Frankfurt bookstore of the 20th century opened its doors in 1949. This anniversary may be one of the reasons that encouraged Salman Rushdie to participate. The author of The Satanic Verses will give a press conference and on Sunday he will receive the Peace Prize of the German Booksellers.
In addition to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, other global crises mark the Frankfurt agenda, such as climate change, the migratory challenge, the weakening of democracy and the rise of autocratic regimes.
“The world has gone out of control. We are facing the climate crisis and the crisis of Western democracies. For a year and a half we have been facing Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and since October 7, a high point of an escalation of violence caused by Hamas’ terrorist war against Israel,” Boss declared this Tuesday during the opening ceremony, in which he recalled that the motto of 2023 is “history continues.”
This history of the Fair is, according to Boos, a history of the defense of freedom of opinion and the promotion of diversity of opinions and debates based on a humanitarian feeling although, he concluded, “that humanitarian feeling has been broken for the Hamas attacks against Israel.
