Denis Muller

A ceremony scheduled for the Frankfurt Book Fair, at which a Palestinian author, Adania Shibli, was to receive a prestigious award, has been cancelled in the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel.

A jury had awarded Shibli the 2023 LiBeraturpreis award for her novel, Minor Detail. It juxtaposes the true story of the rape and murder of a Bedouin girl by an Israel army unit in 1949 with the fictional story of a female journalist investigating the crime in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, decades later.

The award, which was to be given at a ceremony on 20 October, is hosted by Litprom, a not-for-profit organisation funded in part by the German government, and the Frankfurt Book Fair. Its objective is to promote women’s literature from African, Asian, Arab and Latin American countries.

Nuanced writing on genocidal histories

Ulrich Noller, a journalist, left the LiBeraturpreis jury in protest at the award, denouncing Shibli’s book as portraying “the State of Israel as a murder machine”. And a review in the widely read, left-leaning German newspaper, Die Tageszeitung (The Daily Newspaper), alleged that the novel used anti-Israel and anti-Semitic narratives, adding:

In this short novel, all Israelis are rapists and murderers, while the Palestinians are victims of trigger-happy occupiers.

These perspectives were not shared by other members of the Litprom jury, nor by many other critics. The book has been nominated in the US for the National Book Awards and the International Book Awards. Its admirers include J.M. Coetzee and Australian writer Mireille Juchau, who wrote this week:

More than ever we need nuanced writing on the irrefutable ways violent and genocidal histories exert their power on the present. Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail is one of the finest recent examples.

Neither Litprom nor the director of the book fair, Juergen Boos, invoked anti-Semitism as a reason for cancelling the award ceremony. In fact, they said the ceremony would go ahead at a future time and place, yet to be fixed.

Litprom said:

Due to the war started by Hamas, under which millions of people in Israel and Palestine are suffering, the organizer Litprom decided not to hold the award ceremony of the LiBeraturpreis at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Litprom is looking for a suitable format and setting for the event at a later point.

Boos, in his statement announcing the cancellation, said:

We strongly condemn Hamas’s barbaric terror war against Israel […] Frankfurter Buchmesse has always been about humanity, its focus has always been on peaceful and democratic discourse […] Frankfurter Buchmesse stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel.

He went on to say that Israeli and Jewish voices would be given additional time on the book fair’s stages and that an event called “Out of Concern for Israel” would be staged in the fair’s cultural and political pavilion.

Treated as a ‘symbol’?

This is consistent with the widespread reaction to the atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel. They are on a scale of savagery seldom brought into public view.

Yet it is not alleged that Shibli has any sympathy for Hamas or its atrocities. And it is clear from the statements of both Litprom and Boos that their reasons for cancelling the award ceremony has nothing to do with either the merits of Shibli’s novel or her conduct as a person.

So the question arises: what is the connection between Shibli and the Hamas atrocities? This is the ground on which the ceremony is being cancelled. When asked to clarify the connection they perceived between Shibli and Hamas, Litprom told The Conversation:

Against the background of the polarized situation in Germany, in which parts of the media tried to scandalize the celebration of the award, we thought it right to hold the award ceremony at a different time in a less politically charged atmosphere.

Litprom cited the Die Tageszeitung article, which read in part: “After the mass murders of the Hamas terrorists, the awarding of the prize would be almost unbearable.”

Is Shibli being treated as a symbol because she is Palestinian, and her book is from the perspective of a Palestinian? If so, that would put her ethnicity at the centre of the decision-making, which would be an appalling injustice to her as an individual and a violation of principles stated in Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Against free speech

The second objection to the Frankfurt decision is that it is an unjustified and counterproductive abridgement of free speech. This argument has been taken up by more than 1,000 literary figures globally, including Irish novelist Colm Tóibín, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hisham Matar, Man Booker Prize finalist Rachel Kushner and Women’s Prize winner Kamila Shamsie.

In an open letter to the Frankfurt Book Fair, they make the important point that this is the very time Palestinian writers should be given space to share their thoughts, feelings and reflections. Doing so would seem to be consistent with Jurgen Boos’ assertion that the book fair has always been focused on peaceful and democratic discourse.

If dialogue has any part in peaceful and democratic discourse, shutting down Palestinian literary voices at this time seems to work against this objective. The protesting authors go further and call it irresponsible.

There seems to be no reason why the book fair should not give Israeli and Jewish voices the additional time and visibility that is undoubtedly justified, while continuing with the LiBeraturpreis award ceremony. Doing so would be a powerful symbol of its own, a demonstration that the book fair is indeed a place for peaceful and democratic discourse.

Of course there are always security considerations to be taken into account, especially at a time of such heightened emotions. But these, too, have not been invoked by the organisers as a reason for the cancellation.

I believe this cancellation was an ethically indefensible decision – sending exactly the wrong signals at exactly the wrong time.

Muller Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne.

The story was first published in The Conversation.