Homophobia, literary censorship and selling books

The hoo-ha over the Dubai EAIFL literary festival  grows. Geraldine Bedell had been due to launch her romantic comedy The Gulf Between Us there. After reading the manuscript, the festival's organiser Isobel Aboulhoul pulled the title from the programme, citing "cultural sensitivities". The book apparently includes some discussion of Islam and features a gay character.

The hoo-ha over the Dubai EAIFL literary festival  grows. Geraldine Bedell had been due to launch her romantic comedy The Gulf Between Us there. After reading the manuscript, the festival's organiser Isobel Aboulhoul pulled the title from the programme, citing "cultural sensitivities". The book apparently includes some discussion of Islam and features a gay character.

This week Margaret Atwood withdrew the festival saying that as a vice-President of the writer's organisation PEN, she couldn't attend an event that censored work, and yesterday the children's author Anthony Horowitz said he was considering joining her. Activists have started a campaign to blacklist the festival, on blogs and a Facebook group.

Geraldine Bedell aks: “Can you have a literary festival and ban books because they feature gay characters? Is that what being part of the contemporary literary scene means? The organisers claim to be looking for an exchange of ideas - but not, apparently, about sex or faith. That doesn’t leave literature an awful lot of scope.”

From not being described as "the first true literary festival in the Middle East" the Dubai event now finds itself being portrayed as a hotbed of Islamic homophobia.  Finding herself at the centre of this storm Isobel Aboulhoul issued a counter-statement which suggests, wryly, that she's fallen into a subtle trap by censoring the book:

"I did not believe that it was in the Festival’s long term interests to acquiesce to her publisher’s (Penguin) request to launch the book at the first Festival of this nature in the Middle East. We do, of course, acknowledge the excellent publicity campaign being run by Penguin which will no doubt increase sales of her book and we wish Ms Bedell the very best."

On another statement on the main site Ms Abouhoul points out that the decision had been communicated to Geraldine Bedell in September; she is curious why this matter has only come to the public's attention in the month that Bedell's novel is being published.

EDIT: Now it turns out that Margaret Atwood regrets her decision and has come around to Isobel Aboulhou's view that this was as much a controversy stirred up by Bedell's publishers as anything to do with censorship.  Saturday's Guardian says:

On speaking to Isobel Abulhoul, the festival's director, however, she was told that this was not the case, she writes. Rather, the festival director had sent a "candid" and somewhat naive email of rejection, which "was carefully guarded by someone - who? - until now, when it was hurled into the press with great publicity effect, easily stampeding people like me." Atwood, upset that her principled stance was taken under what she now sees as false pretences, and protective of the "first-time festivalite" Abulhoul, says her "head is spinning" as a result of the controversy.

If they did hype up the idea that Bedell's book was "banned" Penguin - and Bedell - should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Self-righteously stirring up Islamophobia to sell books - twenty years after the Satanic Verses affair - is not very smart.

EDIT2: Atwood is incandescent at being drawn into the fracas under what she now considers false pretences:

"The little golden time bomb of a refusal-with-reasons was carefully guarded by someone - who? - until now, when it was hurled into the press to great publicity effect, easily stampeding people like me. Aren't we all too ready to believe that This Is Exactly What Those People Do? To arms, Anti-Censorship Woman!"

In a subsequent version of the above story, The Guardian has now added a quote from Aboulhou's original email to Bedell about why The Gulf Between Uswas not accepted at EAIFL. If anything it makes me even more sympathetic to Aboulhou; trying to run a significant arts festival, with all the multiplicity of views that implies, in a country that has an official monoculture of opinions is a delicate balancing act. Instead of acknowledging that Penguin appear to have chosen to portray her as a representative of an oppressive state to suit their own purposes. And - the upside of all this - Atwood has chosen to take part in the festival via videolink on a panel for a frank discussion of this affair and the issues it raises.