Harun Nasrullah
An award-winning Bosnian author who cut ties with her German publisher over its “silence on Gaza” has been disinvited to a literature festival in Austria, the writer announced on January 30.
LitFest Salzburg’s organizers informed Lana Bastašić that they had closely monitored the discussion surrounding her decision to leave Fischer Publishing House. The email states: “As much as we appreciate your books, under the given circumstances, we unfortunately must withdraw our invitation.”
“Your stay at Literaturhaus NO and participation in the Literature Festival Salzburg would inevitably imply a positioning on our part that we do not wish for.”
The 37-year-old author terminated her contract with the publisher in January, citing their silence on Israel’s attack on Gaza and Germany’s “systematic censorship” culture.
Bastašić, winner of the 2020 EU Prize for Literature, accused her publisher of having double standards, she also claimed that its expressed concern over antisemitism was “deaf to the suffering of Palestinians.”
In response to her disinvitation, Bastašić said that it was her “political and human opinion that children should not be bombed and that German cultural institutions should know better when it comes to genocide.
“Given that you invited me to your residency and festival, you must have been acquainted with my work, which deals closely with the consequences war has on children. Perhaps your literary works are divorced from real life, but then again, you have probably never known war firsthand,” she added.
Bastašić welcomed her disinvitation, stating that she does not want to be a part of another institution that bans artists due to their activism and believes silence and repression are the correct responses to genocide.
Following her split with her publisher in January, the author said that her decision led to significant financial loss and uncertainty, but she would not shift from her position. Bastašić stated that her decision was influenced by personal experience.
As a result of persecution in the 1940s, her ancestors fled Croatia and settled in Bosnia and Herzegovina, wherein the 1990s Muslims were demonised and persecuted by Serbs, with buildings destroyed and thousands killed.
Despite the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that Israel’s carpet bombing and collective punishment of civilians have caused, any mention of this in Germany is deemed antisemitic, explained Bastašić writing for The Guardian.
“Any attempt at providing context and sharing facts on the historical background to the conflict is seen as a crude justification of Hamas’s terror,” she wrote, adding that marches for Palestine have been stopped, Palestinian symbols banned, and Jews showing solidarity with Palestinians silenced.
At least 29,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, following a Hamas-led attack on Israel that left at least 1,139 people dead.
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