• Home

British Author Banned from Literary Festival in Dubai

Geraldine Bedell was told that she cannot participate in the Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature this month because her novel ‘The Gulf Between Us’ contains references to homosexuality.

Festival Director Isobel Abulhoul said that she was concerned about the book’s impact.

“I have lived in Dubai for 40 years,” she said. “Based on my knowledge of who would appeal to the book-reading community in the Middle East, and having read 150 pages of Ms Bedell’s manuscript I know that her work could offend certain cultural sensitivities.

“I did not believe that it was in the festival’s long-term interests to acquiesce to her publisher’s request to launch the book at the first festival of this nature in the Middle East.”

Bedell, who worked as a journalist in Bahrain for several years, said that her romantic novel was set in the Gulf and gave a good reflection of the area.

“It was perfect for this festival,” she said in a telephonic interview. “The reason they chose it was because it was such a good fit. A theme running through the book is prejudice. The book is making a plea for greater cultural understanding. It makes the banning of it quite ironic.”

On Wednesday, British author Margaret Atwood also withdrew from the festival in protest. Atwood, who is the vice-president of PEN, a British organisation concerned with the censorship of writers, said that she was sorry for the “regrettable turn of events”.

The festival also features authors Wilbur Smith, Anthony Horowitz and Jung Chang, as well as poets Simon Armitage and Carol Anne Duffy.

Iraqi author Fadhil Al Azzawi, who will attend the festival, said he could not say whether or not it was right to ban Bedell’s novel as he had not read it. “However, on the whole, different rules should apply to publications in Arab countries,” he added.

martin@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE