Palestinian Artists & Anti-War Supporters of Gaza Cancelled

27 November, 2023 • Nada Ghosn

Dear audience,

In continuation of my support for Palestine and Palestinian voices, I am reposting a recent article from Nada Ghosn who wrote this article for The Markaz Review.

Paintings by Ayman Baalbaki removed from Christie’s London’s Nov. 9, 2023 sale. (Left) “Anonymous,” 2011-18, acrylic and carton laid on canvas 70×50cm, and “Al Moulatham,” 2012, acrylic on printed fabric, 200×150cm (courtesy Christies).

Events deprogrammed, works withdrawn from sale, awards postponed — since October 7, a number of creatives have dealt with a wave of reticence or cancellations on the part of European and American institutions.

Nada Ghosn

On October 16, after the deadly Hamas attack on Israeli territory, Palestinian author Adania Shibli received a brief email from the Frankfurt Book Fair, informing her that the presentation of her prize had been postponed, and that her meeting with the public had been cancelled. The German association LiProm, which was to present her with the LiBeraturpreis for authors from the Global South, summarily justified the decision by citing “the war between Hamas and Israel” that had been raging for 10 days, and the desire to make Israeli voices “particularly audible.”

A few days later in New York, the 92^nd Street Y, a venerable Jewish institution, canceled a scheduled reading by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen without explanation, just a day after he signed an open letter condemning Israel’s “indiscriminate violence” against Palestinians in Gaza, according to Reuters. Nguyen wrote on Instagram, “Their language was ‘postponement,’ but no reason was given, no other date was offered, and I was never asked. So, in effect, cancellation. Some people in social media comments say they heard it was a bomb threat. I’ve heard no such thing from 92Y staff.”

The 92Y didn’t stop with cancelling Nguyen alone; a few days later, the organization put its prestigious literary series on hold after several writers withdrew from events to protest its decision not to hold Nguyen’s reading, according to the New York Times. 92Y disagreed with Nguyen’s anti-war stance, but the novelist wasn’t alone. More than 750 artists signed an open letter in the London Review of Books calling for an immediate cease-fire, charging that Israel’s “unprecedented and indiscriminate violence” in Gaza constituted “grave crimes against humanity.” [to continue reading this article, please visit The Markaz Review]