Award-winning Irish novelist Sally Rooney has turned down an offer from an Israeli publisher to translate her latest novel “Beautiful World Where Are You” into Hebrew.
The Irish author explained her decision in a statement released on her official Twitter account.
She said that while she was “very proud” to have had her previous novels translated into Hebrew she has for now “chosen not to sell these translation rights to an Israeli-based publishing house”.
The statement expressed her desire to support the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement (BDS) a campaign that works to “end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law”.
“Earlier this year the international campaign group Human Rights Watch published a report entitled A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution. That report coming on the heels of a similarly damning report by Israel’s most prominent human rights organization B’Tselem confirmed what Palestinian human rights groups have long been saying: Israel’s system of racial domination and segregation against Palestinians meets the definition of apartheid under international law” Rooney’s statement read.
Rooney is not the first author to refuse translation into Hebrew in solidarity with Palestinian people. Alice Walker author of Pulitzer prize-winning “The Color Purple” refused to authorize a Hebrew translation of her novel in 2012 because of Israel’s apartheid.
