Central Council of Jews: Nobel Prize award for Annie Ernaux is "disturbing"

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Annie Ernaux: Controversial Nobel Laureate

Photo: Michel Euler / picture alliance/dpa/AP

The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Annie Ernaux caused irritation among Jewish organizations in Germany because of her political stance.

"The award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Annie Ernaux is a setback for the global fight against anti-Semitism and misanthropy," said Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

He cannot and does not want to judge the literary work of the Frenchwoman, but the effect of the award goes far beyond the professional world.

Ernaux is accused of being close to the BDS movement.

BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

This is aimed, among other things, at goods from Israel and cooperation in culture and science.

Shortly after the Nobel Committee's announcement last Thursday, allegations of anti-Semitism against the author were made in the Israeli press.

The 82-year-old herself did not comment on this.

Among other things, Ernaux called for a boycott of the »France-Israel« cultural season in 2018 together with 80 cultural and artistic figures, including the recently deceased filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, and in 2019 for a boycott of the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv.

"Annie Ernaux's staunch support of the BDS movement, her public demonization of Israel as an 'apartheid state,' or her demands for the release of a Lebanese terrorist and murderer are not slips of a politically unconsidered writer, but evidence of a clear anti-Semitic attitude," said Schuster.

»The signal that goes out from this Nobel Prize is extremely disturbing for Jews in Germany, especially after the scandalous documenta.«

The acting vice-president of the Auschwitz Committee, Christoph Heubner, said: »It is more than a pity when a great writer loses herself in the hateful and one-sided world of hatred of Israel and the anti-Semitism that goes with it, and thus thwarts her literary work.

In her Nobel Prize speech she will have the opportunity to explain herself and to go beyond the limits of her prejudices.

She owes that to her readers, not only in Israel.«

Meanwhile, Ernaux's book The Other Girl has been published in Germany for the first time.

However, it was sold out just a few hours after the Swedish Academy announced it, according to Suhrkamp Verlag.

The follow-up edition will hit the market in early November.

kae/dpa