American Katie Kitamura, Swedish Fredrik Backman, British Max Porter, Pulitzer Prize winners Jhumpa Lahiri and Hisham Matar have one thing in common: they are well known Western novelists who don’t want their books translated into Hebrew.
Before the current war, there were one or two cases a year of writers refusing Hebrew translation for political reasons. The first was Alice Walker, the author of “The Color Purple.” Today, there are countless. Like the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, South Korean Han Kang.
Since winning the Nobel, Kang has been contacted by several Israeli publishers. Her agent’s letter in response to the latest request from Yoav Reiss, the Israeli publisher of Persimmon, reads: “Kang does not wish her work to be presented in Israel.” As Chilean Isabel Allende has just decided.
