British-Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie has been stripped of a book award over her support for Israel boycott, it was reported on Thursday (19).
The German jury of Nelly Sachs book prize said they are withdrawing its decision to honour the writer over her support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
Earlier this month, the jury decided to honour Shamsie for how her writing is "building bridges between societies." But they decided to strip her of the accolade over her support of BDS.
“With its vote for the British writer Kamila Shamsie… the jury honoured the author’s outstanding literary work,” they said.
“At that time, despite prior research, the members of the jury were not aware that the author has been participating in the boycott measures against the Israeli government for its Palestinian policies since 2014.”
“Shamsie’s political positioning to actively participate in the cultural boycott as part of the BDS campaign… is clearly in contradiction to the statutory objectives of the award,” said the jury.
The Nelly Sachs prize is worth €15,000 (£13,000) and previous winners include Margaret Atwood and Milan Kundera.
Calling the removal of her award a “matter of outrage,” Shamsie wrote on Twitter that the boycott should not be “held up as something shameful and unjust”.
She said it was a “matter of outrage that the BDS movement (modelled on the South African boycott) that campaigns against the government of Israel for its acts of discrimination and brutality against Palestinians should be held up as something shameful and unjust”.
Kamila Shamsie's statement in response to the rescinding of the #NellySachsPreis on basis of her support for #BDS movement for Palestinian rights#McCarthyism pic.twitter.com/2sm6W3xI6Y
— Artists for Palestine UK (@Art4PalestineUK) September 18, 2019
Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of Index on Censorship, told the Guardian that it was disturbing that Shamsie had been stripped of the honour for her personal opinions.
“An award meant to recognise a writer for ‘outstanding literary contributions to the promotion of understanding between peoples’ has been withdrawn because the writer personally supports a non-violent movement that is intended to focus attention on respect for universal human rights,” said Ginsberg.
“Increasingly we are seeing fiction writers being policed for their political opinions and books cancelled as a result. The result will be the very opposite of what the prize organisers seek to achieve: a narrowing of voices and therefore fewer opportunities to promote understanding between people.”
