Maltese literary groups have decried a decision to revoke a Palestinian author’s award amid the brutal conflict that erupted between Israel and Palestine.

Inizjamed, PEN Malta and HELA Foundation voice their protest against the “unacceptable revocation” of a German literary award to Adania Shibli, a Palestinian-born writer whose novel, Minor Detail, was meant to be awarded on 20 October.

“At a time when we need to hear more, not less Palestinian voices and stories of the root causes of the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza and in Israel, the decision by the Frankfurt Book Fair to cancel the award to Shibli is morally wrong and a direct affront to our strongly held value of freedom of speech,” a statement read.

“We stand by our colleagues at PEN Berlin which said: “No book becomes different, better, worse or more dangerous because the news situation changes … Either a book is worthy of an award, or it is not … To withdraw the prize from her would be fundamentally wrong, from a political as well as a literary standpoint.”

The groups said that they condemn all kinds of violence, and that while this is not the time to celebrate, “the revocation of such a prize continues to silence and nullify the Palestinians and their stories, who have been subjected to violence from an oppressive and discriminatory system for decades.”

 The award was given by LitProm association, the German literary association responsible for the prize. LiBeraturpreis is a German literature prize awarded each year to a writer from Africa, Asia, Latin America, or the Arab world during the Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the largest publishing industry gatherings on a global scale.

Adania Shibli is a Palestinian-born writer who has penned novels, plays, short stories, and narrative essays and has won several awards and nominations.

Her latest is the novel Tafsil Thanawi (Al-Adab, 2017, translated as Minor Detail, Fitzcarraldo Edition/UK, and New Directions/USA, 2020), which was shortlisted for the National Book Award in 2020, and in 2021 it was nominated for the International Booker Prize. In 2022, Minor Detail was published by Berenberg Verlag in Germany as Eine Nebensache.

Adania Shibli was a guest writer at the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival 2023 held last August in Fort St Elmo, Valletta. The writer was interviewed by Adrian Grima and spoke about the short story “This Sea is Mohammad al-Khatib’s” as well as her other notable novels.

Shibli’s story focuses on Mohammad al-Khatib, the Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, those imprisoned in Gaza, and their longing for the sea altogether. Shibli, amongst other aspects, touched upon the power of languages and the magic of the Arabic languages which gives voice to her stories.

As quoted by Deutsche Welle, LitProm association claims that Shibli’s novel was a “rigorously composed work of art that tells of the power of borders and of what violent conflicts make of people” and thus was going to award her with a prize that honours women writers from the Global South for newly published works in the German language.

This prize was never short of controversy heightened by the current bombings which started this October.

What do you make of this decision?