Israeli officials have today accused acclaimed author Sally Rooney of ‘impeding peace’ in the Middle East by refusing a publisher’s offer to have her latest book translated into Hebrew.
The award-winning Irish writer yesterday defended her decision to refuse the translation of ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’, by Israeli publisher Modan.
The Normal People author, 30, who was accused of anti-Semitism over the decision, said she supported a cultural boycott of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.
In a statement yesterday she said the decision to reject the publisher – who she claimed had ‘not publicly distanced itself from apartheid’ – was an expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people ‘in their struggle for freedom and equality’.
But Israeli officials have hit back today, describing Miss Rooney’s decision as ‘narrow-minded’ and impeding peace in the Holy Land.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Foreign Ministry told the Telegraph: ‘This is an unfortunate position that promotes narrow-mindedness and impedes peace, dialogue, or any meaningful change.
‘Literature is a tool to promote dialogue and conversation. There is something inherently flawed with an intellectual who refuses to engage in conversation, and instead supports the silencing of opinion.’
It comes after the award-winning author defended rejecting the publisher’s offer to translate her new book – which topped UK and Irish charts since its release in September – saying she backed a cultural boycott of Israel.
However the decision sparked a wave of criticism against the author and screenwriter – whose smash hit book Normal People was adapted into an acclaimed BBC TV drama.
Some took to social media to label Miss Rooney’s decision as ‘anti-Semitic’, while others questioned why her books were published for an audience in China – which has been accused of human rights abuses over its treatment of Uighur Muslims.
But the author defended her decision – which she said was not to have the book published by an Israeli-based publishing house – and that the Hebrew language rights were ‘still available’.
Sally Rooney, 30, was asked by Israeli publisher Modan to translate her new book -Beautiful World, Where Are You – but the author allegedly rejected the request
Nurit Tinari, director of the foreign ministry’s culture division, said: ‘The boycott movement is an illegitimate campaign that has been tainted with anti-Semitism since the day it was founded through to today.
Beautiful World, Where Are You follows the life of novelist Alice after she asks a distribution warehouse worker to travel to Rome with her
Today Ms Rooney defended her decision, saying in a statement: ‘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.’
She also addressed criticism that her books were translated into other languages from countries which have come under scrutiny for human rights abuses
She added that the Hebrew-language translation rights were ‘still available’ to those ‘compliant’ with the BDS movement – a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel
Writing in a statement, Rooney said: ‘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.
‘Of course, many states other than Israel are guilty of grievous human rights abuses.
‘This was also true of South Africa during the campaign against apartheid there.
‘In this particular case, I am responding to the call from Palestinian civil society, including all major Palestinian trade unions and writers’ unions.’
She added that the Hebrew-language translation rights were ‘still available’ to those ‘compliant’ with the BDS movement – a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel.
She added: ‘I will be very pleased and proud to do so. In the meantime I would like to express once again my solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, justice and equality.’
But Nurit Tinari, director of Israel’s foreign ministry’s culture division, today attacked Miss Rooney’s support of the BDS campaign – a group she described as a ‘tainted with anti-Semitism’.
She told the Telegraph: ‘If Ms Rooney had only visited Israel and studied the situation in depth, I believe that she would not have made such a discriminatory decision that excludes an entire group of people based on its place of residence and language.’
The row comes after The New York Times published an interview with Miss Rooney in September. This was then translated into Hebrew and published with more details by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Haaretz reported: ‘When Modan approached Rooney’s agent in an attempt to sign another translation deal, the agent announced that Rooney supports the cultural boycott movement on Israel and therefore does not approve translation into Hebrew.’
Miss Rooney’s agent, Tracy Bohan, said the author had declined the translation when approached for comment, according to Haaretz.
The two previous novels written by Miss Rooney, Conversations With Friends and Normal People, have both been published in Hebrew by Modan.
Miss Rooney’s support for a boycott of Israel has seen her sign an open letter which called for ‘an end to the support provided by global powers to Israel and its military; especially the United States’ and also urged governments to ‘cut trade, economic and cultural relations’.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency also noted that in her second novel, Normal People, the main characters attend a protest against Israel’s role in the 2014 Gaza war.
Academic Gitit Levy-Paz highlighted the boycott revelation last night in a blog post on the website Forward.
She wrote: ‘Rooney’s decision surprised and saddened me. I am a Jewish and Israeli woman, but I am also a literary scholar who believes in the universal power of art.’
Meanwhile Ben Judah, a British author and journalist, wrote on Twitter: ‘Depressing and unpleasant that Sally Rooney won’t allow her new novel to be translated into Hebrew.’
Another critic of the decision was Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life. She said on Twitter: ‘Sally Rooney’s novels are available in Chinese and Russian.
‘Doesn’t she care about the Uighurs? Or Putin-defying journalists? To judge Israel by a different standard than the rest of the world is antisemitism.’
Joel M Petlin, Superintendent of the Kiryas Joel School District, in New York state, also criticised Miss Rooney’s stance, saying on Twitter: ‘When Sally Rooney books are translated into Yiddish then we can stop calling her an anti-Semite. Until then, the label is well deserved.’
Meanwhile, Ron Kampeas, the Washington, D.C. bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, urged Miss Rooney to distinguish between boycotting an Israeli publisher and the Hebrew language.
He said: ‘The Internet has been around for quite some time now. If you’re Sally Rooney and you’re boycotting Israeli publishers there are ways to make a text available in Hebrew to make clear you are not boycotting a culture, a people, an ethnicity.
Asked if it was her responsibility to have the texts translated, he replied: ‘It’s not her responsibility, no. But unlike a boycott of, say, a book festival in Israel, or a university symposium, this involves keeping the book from appearing in a Jewish language. I think it behooves a writer to explain that they would not object to translation per se.’
Miss Rooney’s three novels are renowned for their minimalist writing style and melancholy depiction of life in post-financial crisis Ireland. Her work also addresses tensions between Ireland’s working and middle classes.
She won four book awards in the UK, including Young Writer of the Year by the Sunday Times in 2017 and the Costa Book award in 2018.
Normal People, based on the on-off relationship between Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron during their youth, was adapted into an acclaimed BBC series in 2020.
Following the show’s success Miss Rooney described the downfalls of fame.
She told The Guardian: ‘Of course, that person could stop doing whatever it is they’re good at, in order to be allowed to retire from public life, but that seems to me like a big sacrifice on their part and an exercise in cultural self-destruction for the rest of us, forcing talented people either to endure hell or keep their talents to themselves.
‘I don’t think it is graceless for people in those positions to speak out about how poisonous this system is. It doesn’t seem to work in any real way for anyone, except presumably some shareholders somewhere.’
Her latest novel Beautiful World, Where Are You follows the life of novelist Alice after she asks a distribution warehouse worker to travel to Rome with her.
Miss Rooney’s Normal People was later adapted into an acclaimed BBC series in 2020
In 2018, Miss Rooney told The Daily Telegraph that she struggled with socialising while growing up, despite her newfound status as the voice of the so-called ‘millennial’ generation.
She said: ‘I thought school was immensely boring and, as a teenager, I often found social life quite mystifying…I was not someone to whom it came easily to be charming.’
A spokesman for Modan told The Daily Telegraph yesterday that it would not be publishing Rooney’s third novel but declined to say whether this was due to a boycott.