Pakistani writer and columnist Fatima Bhutto and Pakistani-British author Kamila Shamsie were among the 600 writers, academics and translators who signed an open letter in support of Palestinian author Adania Shibli. The ceremony was set to celebrate Shibli’s novel ‘Minor Detail’ by giving her the 2023 LiBeraturpreis, a German literature prize annually awarded to authors from Africa, Asia, Latin American or from Arabia.

Fatima shared a screenshot of the letter on her Instagram account and urged her followers to read ‘Minor Detail’.

This outrage arrives after Frankfurt Book Fair postponed the awards ceremony which was due to honour Shibli, providing the explanation “due to the war started by the Hamas, under which millions of people in Israel and Palestine are suffering.”

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In the original statement, LitProm said this was a joint decision made with the author. However, Shibli’s literary agency revealed to The Guardian the decision was not made with her permission, and had the awards ceremony been held she would have taken the moment to reflect on the power of literature during these cruel times.

The open letter which includes Bhutto, British historian William Darlymple, Shamsie, Irish novelist Colm Toibin, called out the organisers behind the Frankfurt Book Fair writing it holds “a responsibility to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down.”

The event was due to honor Adania’s 2020 novel ‘Minor Detail’ which details the true story about the rape and murder of a Palestinian Bedouin girl by Israeli soldiers. The English translation was nominated for a National Book Award in 2020 and the International Booker Prize in 2021.

Controversy surrounding the book began this week when the German newspaper, Die Tageszeitung, accused the book for portraying “the State of Israel as a murder machine.”