I didn’t know what to do with this yesterday when I read this article about Sally Rooney

https://www.thefp.com/p/sally-rooneys-literary-mob-groupthink-israel-hebrew-translations-boycott?r=2li1wm&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true

I was too busy to write anyway because I was planning, together with a Muslim friend, their wedding celebration – all multilingual poetry.  All we could think about was how to bring people together, bring languages together.  The entire idea of literary censorship was so antithetical to my entire concept of literature I couldn’t believe it. 

But then I remembered many years ago when I was a guest of the British Government, that we were told to go to a writer’s house for dinner.  But when we got there on a rainy night, there was no one home.  Fearing I made a mistake, I called her number.  And after I went home (hungry) and emailed her, she never answered. 

I didn’t report this to the government, but I knew what it meant.  You do too.