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Frankfurt Book Fair Draws Anger after Palestinian Writer’s Award Postponed

Participants hold a Palestinian flag during a “Solidarity for Palestine” rally in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 14 October 2023. (EPA)
Participants hold a Palestinian flag during a “Solidarity for Palestine” rally in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 14 October 2023. (EPA)
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Frankfurt Book Fair Draws Anger after Palestinian Writer’s Award Postponed

Participants hold a Palestinian flag during a “Solidarity for Palestine” rally in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 14 October 2023. (EPA)
Participants hold a Palestinian flag during a “Solidarity for Palestine” rally in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 14 October 2023. (EPA)

Hundreds of international writers have condemned a literary association and the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest forum for books and literature, after a Palestinian writer's award was postponed and a public discussion with her cancelled.

The Malaysian government said on Tuesday it would boycott the fair entirely, because of the postponement and after the fair said it would highlight Israeli voices following the Hamas attack on Israel.

Adania Shibli, a Palestinian novelist who divides her time between Berlin and Jerusalem, had been due to receive a prize for "literature from the developing world" for her novel Minor Detail at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The novel, an account of the 1949 war in which clashes between Arabs and Jews saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes, one of the formative moments of the long-lasting Arab-Israeli conflict, has drawn comparisons with the works of Albert Camus.

Litprom, which is funded by the German government and the Frankfurt Book Fair and manages the prize, said last Friday it would postpone Shibli's award due to the war against Israel. On Tuesday, it said it had decided to hold the award ceremony at a different time in a "less politically charged atmosphere".

The fair itself said separately it wanted to foreground Israeli and Jewish voices in the aftermath of Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel in which over 1,300 were killed.

"Frankfurt Book Fair stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel," the book fair posted on Instagram on Saturday, citing the fair's director, Juergen Boos, who is also the president of Litprom.

Boos also said "the war against Israel, the resulting suffering and the travel restrictions have had an impact on our program... Terror, however, can never be allowed to win, which is why we want to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair."

Asked about the postponement of the award, Boos said the Fair could not comment but added, "Freedom of words is the backbone of our publishing industry. This is part of the DNA of the Frankfurt Book Fair, and that is what we stand for."

A public discussion with Shibli and her book translator scheduled at the Fair was also cancelled, a spokesperson for the Fair said.

In an open letter, the postponement was condemned by over 600 writers, including Nobel prizewinners such as Abdulrazak Gurnah, Annie Ernaux, and Olga Tokarczuk, and Booker Prize winners Anne Enright, Richard Flanagan and Ian McEwan.

"The Frankfurt Book Fair has a responsibility, as a major international book fair, 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 open letter said.

Acclaimed Syrian playwright Mohammed Al Attar and Syrian writer Rasha Abbas said they would boycott the fair.

The education ministry of Muslim-majority Malaysia accused the organizers of taking a pro-Israel stance, amid growing global divisions over the conflict in the Middle East.

"The ministry will not compromise with Israel's violence in Palestine, which clearly violates international laws and human rights," Malaysia's education ministry said in a statement late on Monday.

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Cars, Chlamydia Threaten Australian Koalas

This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
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Cars, Chlamydia Threaten Australian Koalas

This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)

Clinging to a fluffy toy twice her size, orphaned koala joey Ajooni made a snuffling noise as she drank milk from a tiny syringe.

Weighing about the same as a mango, she was found by the side of a Sydney road where her mother was hit by a car and died.

It is a familiar tale for wildlife carer Emma Meadows, AFP reported.

Over the past two years, Meadows and other volunteers have recovered 40 koalas hit by cars in their neighborhood. The number left for dead is likely much higher.

Koalas are shy and notoriously difficult to count.

There are anywhere between 95,000 and 524,000 left in Australia, possibly down from millions before European settlement.

There is little doubt that expanding cities, land clearance and the spread of chlamydia are devastating the populations of one of Australia's most iconic animals.

East Coast koalas were officially listed as "endangered" by the Australian government in 2022.

"I actually, truly, believe we're heading towards extinction," said Meadows, a volunteer with WIRES.

"I don't know if there is any coming back from this. I'm scared it's too late."

Chlamydia was first observed in koalas about 50 years ago. In the decades since, it has wiped out entire local populations.

The bacteria leads to blindness, bladder infections, infertility, and death.

Although some chlamydia-free koala populations exist -- such as the area where Ajooni was found -- scientists fear these pockets may soon disappear.

- World's 'extinction capital' -

Annabelle Olsson, director of the University of Sydney Wildlife Health and Conservation Hospital, has regularly examined rescued koalas -- including seven-month-old Ajooni.

On the day AFP visited the center, a sedated three-year-old koala lay on an operation table, while Olsson and her team took the marsupial's blood, did X-rays and examined the koala's face.

The koala was chlamydia-free but had a head injury that impacted her reflexes and would require further attention.

Olsson said without better koala protections "our grandchildren, or at least their grandchildren, are going to see maybe koalas in a zoo if they're lucky.”

"Australia is an island nation with an incredibly high biodiversity and incredibly unique wildlife species and floral species that need to be preserved," she said.

Scientists believe Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world, with about 100 of the country's unique flora and fauna species wiped out in the last 123 years.

Environment minister Tanya Plibersek has said Australia is "the mammal extinction capital of the world. "

While there are some rules and guidelines to protect koala habitats, koala bushland continues to be cleared.

- Vaccine hopes -

Some have instead focused their conservation efforts on quelling the spread of koala chlamydia.

University of the Sunshine Coast researcher Samuel Phillips is part of a team working on a potential vaccine.

They have vaccinated and monitored 165 koalas over 10 years and found inoculated marsupials developed chlamydia later in life and their mortality was reduced by 64 percent.

A Queensland trial of the vaccination, used in conjunction with traffic and predator controls, was so successful that a local koala population doomed for extinction within 10 years rebounded.

Some marsupials will even need to be translocated to stop overpopulation, Phillips said.

"It's been a really positive story," he said.

However, Phillips warns that more needs to be done to address the other key drivers of koala decline, particularly the deforestation of their habitats.

"We can keep protecting these small populations, but without increasing the habitat and protecting it, then they won't be living."

- 'Make a difference' -

Ajooni will remain in Meadow's care until she is big enough to be released back into the wild.

It will be a "bittersweet" moment for Meadow, but she says seeing any koala successfully released is the best feeling.

That feeling is what keeps her going through the awful parts of her volunteer role: scraping dead koala bodies off the road in the middle of the night, or finding animals that are so severely injured that they need to be put down.

"I continue to do what I do because somebody needs to make a difference, and I feel that this is one way in the world that I can make a difference," Meadows said.