Summary
A liberal Jewish South African writer and Nobel Prize laureate who vehemently opposed apartheid, addressed in Chapter 8’s open letter for insisting on participating in a writers’ festival largely sponsored by the Israeli government (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, PDF p.137-138).
Details
- She “won a Nobel Prize for Literature, among several other accolades. She vehemently opposed apartheid, and her work largely reflected and promoted the antiapartheid struggle.” (PDF p.137)
- In her response to letters of concern she cited literature “opening up the human mind” and claimed peace must begin with “both sides talking to one another” (PDF p.137).
- She asserted she was “not invited to Israel by the Israeli Government”; the letter replies that the International Writers Festival was primarily funded, promoted and sponsored by Israeli government sources (PDF p.138).
- The letter’s conclusion recalls that Gordimer and Edward Said lobbied Susan Sontag to reject the Jerusalem Prize, on the logic that state involvement — Shimon Peres as a judge of the prize — meant writers should not participate; her promised Ramallah visit is answered: “Was visiting a bantustan ever a moral or rational excuse for participating in a largely pro-apartheid gathering in South Africa?” (PDF p.139)
Related pages
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, Haidar Eid, Cultural boycott, Desmond Tutu