POLITICS, freedom of expression and conscience, and the burden of history: all these have coalesced in a storm of controversy over the revocation of the Nelly Sachs Prize to acclaimed British-Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie. Earlier this month, she was announced the winner of the biennial literary award named after the Jewish poet and Nobel Laureate. However, a few days ago, the jury in the German city of Dortmund rescinded the award upon learning that Ms Shamsie has expressed her commitment to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in support of Palestinian rights. The decision has not gone down well in the literary community. Over 250 writers from across the world have put their signatures to an open letter titled ‘The right to boycott’ that was printed on Monday in the London Review of Books, denouncing the move as tantamount to punishing a writer for human rights advocacy.

Among them are some of the finest practitioners of their craft and those whose works are a defining voice in contemporary social and political commentary — Arundhati Roy, Michael Ondaatje, Ben Okri, J.M. Coetzee, Noam Chomsky and William Dalrymple, to name but a few. In its zeal to expiate the sins of the past, Germany — along with other countries — has sometimes over-compensated by turning a blind eye to the suffering of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli state. Ironically, Nelly Sachs, whose verses capture the horror of the Holocaust and lingering effects on the Jews who survived it, herself continued a correspondence with a younger generation of German writers in her later years. A sense of moral purpose and an understanding of the human condition on the part of an artist add to their work, rather than detracting from it. As the open letter says, “What is the meaning of a literary award that undermines the right to advocate for human rights, the principles of freedom of conscience and expression, and the freedom to criticise? Without these, art and culture become meaningless luxuries”.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2019