PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: refusingcomplicityletter@gmail.com
16th December:
7,000+ AUTHORS AND BOOK WORKERS JOIN HISTORIC BOYCOTT AGAINST COMPLICIT ISRAELI PUBLISHERS
Thousands Join Pledge for Palestinian Rights since October
Over 7,000 writers, editors, translators, illustrators, publishers, agents, librarians, and other book industry workers have now joined the boycott of Israeli literary institutions complicit in the dispossession of the Palestinian people. Upon its release on October 28th, 2024, the public letter announcing the campaign already constituted the largest boycott against Israeli cultural institutions in history. Now, with thousands more signing on, this letter signals a watershed moment in the international movement for Palestinian rights.
Among the new signatories are Khaled Hosseini, Piper Kerman, Ling Ma, Robin Coste Lewis, Michael Rosen, Peter Carey, Omar El Akkad, Chris Kraus, R.O. Kwon, V (fka Eve Ensler), Annie Baker, Kiran Desai, Brandon Taylor, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Akwaeke Emezi, adrienne maree brown, Bette A. & Brian Eno, John Cusack, Sapphire, and Greta Thunberg.
The signatories include winners of the Nobel Prize, Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Giller Prize, MacArthur Fellowship, Miles Franklin Award, and National Book Award—including three of this year’s winners: Percival Everett, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and Shifa Saltagi Safadi—and editors at each of the “Big Five”¹ publishing houses, and many independent publishers.
While retaliation against signatories has been rare, authors are standing fast when faced with shameful backlash. Germany’s Schelling Architecture Foundation, for example, rescinded a prize and €10k award from James Bridle, citing the writer and artist’s participation in the cultural boycott. In response, Bridle reaffirmed their position. “The far right, and the denial of genocide that accompanies it, are on the march everywhere,” they wrote. “Late enough to be ashamed, but never too late, I sign my name."²
The solidarity campaign, heeding the call from Palestinian civil society, takes aim at institutional complicity, not the identity or national origin of any individuals or groups of people. The list of signatories includes Israeli authors who stand against the country’s genocidal actions. Institutions willing to meet the campaign’s basic demands can exempt themselves from the cultural boycott:
1. Denounce and distance themselves from Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime.
2. Affirm the full protected rights of the Palestinian people under international law, including the right of return.
Research into 98 Israeli publishers found that only one, November Books, a small, independent publisher, is currently meeting these two demands against complicity.
Quotes from New Signatories:
Omar El Akkad, Giller Prize winning novelist, said, “Even if I wasn’t complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people (and I am: my tax dollars fund it), the least I can offer in solidarity is my non-involvement with any institutional machinery that actively or passively normalizes this horror. We are writers: we may claim concern for the human condition or we may look away from the most grotesque, well-documented atrocity of our age, but we can’t do both.”
Bette A. & Brian Eno said, “We have chosen to sign the boycott to express our solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine, to support the Palestinian individuals and organizations that keep working for safety and peace, as well as the courageous Israeli individuals and organizations who publicly protest the oppression of the Palestinian people. It's not an easy choice for us to boycott any literary institution—the book world is a place where we can connect across cultures, find nuance and bridges to peace. Unfortunately, since the Israeli government and its supporters have no hesitation in using literary institutions for propaganda, we consider our decision to boycott to be a way of taking this particular weapon out of their hands.”
Nicholas Mirzoeff said, “As an anti-Zionist Jew, it is beholden on me to take every step possible to refuse this genocide purportedly done in my name.”
Naomi Wallace said, “As cultural workers we must speak out for the liberation of Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
Jeff Halper said, “As an Israeli author who writes on Zionist settler colonialism, Israeli militarism and the Palestinian struggle, I add my name to any initiative calling out and demanding the end to Israeli genocide.”
Alejandro Varela said: “I'm a signatory to this letter because history shows that boycotts are effective when they become popular. I hope the cumulative effect of all our pledges will be to catalyze those who have yet to support the BDS movement and to pressure Israel to end its occupation of Palestine, beginning with an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.”
New Signatories Include:
Annie Baker, author of Janet Planet and The Flick
James Bridle, author of Ways of Being and New Dark Age
adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism
Peter Carey, author of True History of the Kelly Gang and Oscar and Lucinda
John Cusack, co-author, with fellow signatory Arundhati Roy, of Things That Can and Cannot Be Said
Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise
Akwaeke Emezi, author of The Death of Vivek Oji
Bette A. & Brian Eno, authors of What Art Does
Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns
Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black
Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick
R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries and Exhibit
Robin Coste Lewis, author of Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems
Ling Ma, author of Severance
Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk
Michael Rosen, author of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
Sapphire, author of Push (adapted into major motion picture Precious)
Shifa Saltagi Safadi, author of Kareem Between (2024 National Book Award)
Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life and The Late Americans
Greta Thunberg, author of The Climate Book
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, author of Something About Living (2024 National Book Award)
V (fka Eve Ensler), author of The Vagina Monologues
See the full letter and list of signatories here.
Sign onto the letter here.
¹Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Penguin Random House, MacMillan, and HarperCollins Publishers
The “Refusing Complicity” letter has been coordinated by a coalition: Books Against Genocide (BAG), Book Workers for a Free Palestine (BWfFP), Fossil Free Books, The Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest), Publishers for Palestine, and Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG).
For additional information and context, including quotes from initiating authors, see the initial press release here.