Hundreds of authors protest after Kamila Shamsie's book award is revoked

Arundhati Roy, JM Coetzee and Sally Rooney are among more than 250 writers who have defended Kamila Shamsie after a German literary prize withdrew an award over her support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

In an open letter published today in the London Review of Books, the writers, who also include Noam Chomsky, Amit Chaudhuri, William Dalrymple, Yann Martel, Jeanette Winterson and Ben Okri, say that the Nelly Sachs prize has chosen to “punish an author for her human rights advocacy”. Michael Ondaatje, a former winner of the award, is one of the signatories to the letter.