Israel-Hamas tensions hit world’s biggest book fair in Frankfurt

FRANKFURT – The Israel-Hamas war is set to overshadow the Frankfurt Book Fair this week after the

postponement of a Palestinian author’s award ceremony

sparked condemnation from top writers and the withdrawal of several Arab groups.

The world’s biggest publishing trade event begins on Wednesday, just over a week after Hamas launched the

deadliest attack in Israel’s history

, prompting Israel to respond with a relentless bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip.

The book fair’s organisers swiftly denounced the Palestinian militants’ “barbaric” assault and rushed to reorganise the schedule, pledging that Israeli voices would feature prominently.

The fair “stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel”, director Juergen Boos said in a statement.

But the run-up to the five-day event has been overshadowed by a furious backlash after an award ceremony for Palestinian author Adania Shibli was postponed.

She was due to receive the LiBeraturpreis, a German award, for her book Minor Detail, based on the real events of a 1949 rape and murder by Israeli soldiers.

It is organised by Litprom, which gives out the honour each year at the fair. However, the group said it had decided not to go ahead with the ceremony “due to the war started by Hamas”.

In a statement, the group said that it was looking for a “suitable format and setting for the event at a later point” while insisting that: “Awarding the prize to Adania Shibli was never in question.”

However, in an open letter released on Monday, more than 600 signatories including high-profile authors, publishers and literary agents, condemned the move.

Postponing the award amounted to “closing out the space for a Palestinian voice”, said the letter, whose signatories included Abdulrazak Gurnah and Olga Tokarczuk, both winners of the Nobel Prize in literature.

“The Frankfurt Book Fair has a responsibility, as a major international book fair, to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down,” it added.

Other writers who signed the letter included Pankaj Mishra, William Dalrymple, Colm Toibin and Naomi Klein.

Rare appearance by Salman Rushdie

Some Arab publishing industry groups announced at the weekend that they were pulling out of the fair. These included the Sharjah Book Authority, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which said in a statement that “we champion the role of culture and books to encourage dialogue and understanding between people”.

“We believe that this role is more important than ever.”

The Emirates Publishers Association released a similar statement, while the UAE-based National newspaper reported that the Arab Publishers’ Association in Egypt had also pulled out.

While declining to comment on the decisions of individual exhibitors, Mr Boos insisted the fair was “open to authors, publishers, translators and literature fans from all over the world”.

It is a “platform for both Israeli and Palestinian voices”, he said.

Elsewhere at the fair, one of the most anticipated authors to be featured in 2023 will be Salman Rushdie. He has rarely appeared in public since a stabbing attack in 2022 that nearly killed him.

Rushdie, who has faced death threats since his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, was declared blasphemous by Iran’s late supreme leader, lost sight in one eye in the attack in the small American town of Chautauqua.

The author is due to speak at a press conference on Friday and will be awarded the prestigious peace prize of the German Book Trade on Sunday.

Also in focus in 2023 is artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential impact on the publishing industry.

There is “a deep sense of insecurity” among book industry players worldwide about AI, said Mr Boos.

Concerns range from potential copyright violations to low-quality computer-written books flooding the market, he said.

The Frankfurt Book Fair, in its 75th edition in 2023, runs from Wednesday until Sunday. AFP