Nobel winner Ernaux backs Germany boycott over Gaza war

BERLIN — French Nobel Prize-winning writer Annie Ernaux has joined a cultural boycott of Germany over the Hamas-Israel war, her publisher said on Tuesday, as the Gaza conflict divides the country's cultural scene.

The petition has collected over a thousand signatures, according to organisers "Strike Germany", although the names could not be independently verified.

The group calls on signatories to end their participation in "festivals, panels, and exhibitions" in Germany.

The petition comes in response to what the "Strike Germany" sees as signs that "freedom of expression, specifically expressions of solidarity with Palestine" are being suppressed in Germany.

A wave of cultural events and prize ceremonies in Germany have been cancelled after participants expressed views considered to be too anti-Israel.

The trend has raised concerns that artistic freedoms are being constrained, even as organisers defend their decisions as necessary to push back against the possibility of anti-Semitism.

Ernaux has "signed the 'Strike Germany' petition", a spokeswoman for the writer's German publisher Suhrkamp told AFP, after the news was first reported by the German Rheinische Post daily.

The "publication and staging of her texts" are not affected by the boycott, Ernaux told Suhrkamp, according to the spokeswoman.

Earlier this week, prize-winning Bosnian and Serbian author Lana Bastasic said she had ended her contract with German publishing house S Fischer over the war.

On Instagram, she accused her publisher of failing “to be vocal” about the plight of Gazans and for having “kept quiet on the systemic and systematic censorship happening in Germany”.

Germany has been steadfast in its support of Israel since the war started.

At least 24,285 Palestinians, about 70 per cent of them women, children and adolescents, have been killed in Gaza in Israeli bombardments and ground operations since October 7, according to the Hamas government.