You Are Not Literature
Novelist Lana Bastašić’s blazing response to yet another act of censorship from German literary organisations and festival organisers has been viewed by many as both brutally articulate and also courageous and inspiring.
Last month, the award-winning Bosnian-Serbian novelist announced she was cutting ties with her German publisher in protest against its silence on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The dispute mirrors the ethical conflict arising from sponsorship of literary and cultural events here in Scotland where backers are heavily invested in fossil fuels.
In this case the high profile Austrian literary organizations Literaturfest Salzburg and Literaturhaus NÖ withdrew Bastašić’s invitation and effectively cancelled her upcoming residency and readings. They wrote:
Dear Lana
Thank you once again for your interest in the residency and reading in May 2024. Like many others, we have been closely following the discussion surrounding your decision to leave the S. Fischer publishing house, and we have engaged in intensive discussions on the matter over the past few days. As much as we appreciate your books, under the given circumstances, we unfortunately must withdraw our invitation. Your stay at Literaturhaus NÖ and participation in the Literature Festival Salzburg would inevitably imply a positioning on our part that we do not wish for and contradicts our role.
Best regards,
Josef Kirchner and Anna Weidenholzer
Bastašić responded saying:
Dear Anna,
For the sake of truth and transparency, I would like to remind you that the interest was yours, given that you invited me. Your decision to uninvite me is a clear positioning on your part. Let it also be clear that this is a cancellation of a residency and an event we previously agreed on, based solely on my decision to leave a publisher. It is my political and human opinion that children should not be slaughtered and that German cultural institutions should know better when it comes to genocide. You should also know that you have now added yourselves to the long and infamous list of cultural institutions which cancel artists who refuse to stay silent when the world is screaming.
I do not know what literature means to you outside of networking and grants. To me it means, first and foremost, an unwavering love for human beings and the sanctity of human life. Given that you invited me to your residency and festival, you must have been acquainted with my work, which deals closely with the consequences war has on children. Perhaps to you literary works are divorced from real life, but then again you probably have never known war first hand.
Thank you for uninviting me. I would not want to be part of another institution which not only cancels artists because of their activism, but seems to think silence and censorship is the right answer to genocide. While I am aware of the fact that the funding you receive within the system you inhabit must have made you forgetful of what art really is about, I still want to remind you that (fortunately for precarious writers like myself), you are not Literature. Your money is not Literature. S. Fischer is not Literature. Germany is not Literature. And we, the writers, will remember.
Lana Bastašić
Taking a hit for your principles is not just a rare thing today but is a difficult thing for hard-up writers trying to develop their artform and survive. Leaving her publisher cost the writer a ‘years worth of money’ we’re told.
But is is Bastašić’s line ‘You are not Literature, your money is not Literature‘ that really lands. It is the demarcation of roles that lights up this response, and the refusal to be neither prostitute nor monkey. The perceived role of the literary festival is to give profile to the writers and to sell books and tickets. But they want the writers to be interesting enough — but not too interesting. Any prospect of actually having a political message, or to be politically organised is verboten. The response cuts a line between the sort of liberal introspective and burgeoning bougie book culture and real literature.
The cultural sector is becoming the epicentre of the wider political clash in Germany. Writing in Jacobin in November Dave Braneck writes: “Germany’s leaders have given unconditional support for Israel’s war in Gaza — but also demanded that immigrants do the same. The rhetoric of German atonement for the past is being used to silence left-wing Jews and blame antisemitism on immigrants.” He continues:
“We’re also now seeing the mere assertion that Palestinians are people itself being deemed somehow antisemitic or supportive of Hamas. German press did not hesitate to attack Naomi Klein (who is Jewish) for calling Israeli violence “genocidal” and failing to condemn Hamas in the same tweet. Nor have they thought twice about branding Judith Butler (who is also Jewish) as an antisemitic “Israel-hater” for “relativizing” Hamas’s violence and for her role in postcolonial studies more broadly. That using the state of Israel as a monolithic stand-in for all Jews is itself pretty antisemitic hasn’t seemed to dawn on most Germans.”
Atonement as Denial
Now more than 500 writers, artists, filmmakers, and culture workers have announced a push back against Germany’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza, calling on creatives to step back from collaborating with German state-funded organisations. Called Strike Germany, the protest is in response to the continuing Israeli assault on Gaza that since October 7 has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, nearly 10,000 of them children.
The artist-led coalition demands that German authorities should protect artistic freedom. It also calls on German institutions to combat structural racism, and calls for support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The movement has such support that key events such as the upcoming Berlin Film Festival, as well as associations like the Goethe-Institut, and museums like Gropius Bau could be affected.
Strike Germany was launched earlier this month, and is backed by French author and Nobel Prize for literature winner Annie Ernaux, and Palestinian poet and activist Mohammed El-Kurd, who alleges Germany has adopted “McCarthyist policies that suppress freedom of expression, specifically expressions of solidarity with Palestine”. Other supporters include the actress, Indya Moore, British Turner Prize winner Tai Shani, and Lebanese alternative rock singer Hamed Sinno.
It is a dark irony that freedom of speech is being curtailed in defence of genocide while large parts of Gaza resemble the Warsaw Ghetto. A world as brutalised as this needs writers of conscience like Lana Bastašić to articulate an adequate response.
