DUBAI (AFP) – The first-ever Dubai literary festival opened on Thursday after sparking an international row over censorship when a British novel that features a gay sheikh was rejected.
Sixty-five writers from 20 countries, including Britain and the United States, are participating in the four-day Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature, said festival director Isobel Abulhoul.
The festival faced an international literary storm earlier this month after news that The Gulf Between Us, a romantic novel by Britain's Geraldine Bedell, was turned down by the organisers.
"This has nothing to do with censorship... We simply found after reading the book upon the request of its publisher, Penguin, that it is not suitable for the festival," Abulhoul told AFP on Thursday.
Canadian Booker-prize winner Margaret Atwood, who is the vice president of PEN, the literary anti-censorship organisation, pulled out of the festival outraged by the decision.
But she wrote on Saturday in the London's Guardian newspaper that she regretted her decision, which she took based on the belief Bedell's book had been banned.
Atwood is now expected to participate through a video conference in a hastily-arranged debate on censorship during the festival.
Festival participants include American Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt, veteran BBC war correspondent Kate Adie as well as authors Louis de Berniere, Kate Mosse, and Wilbur Smith who is due to launch his new novel ASSEGAI during the festival.
Also taking part is Saudi female writer Rajaa al-Sanea, who authored the widely published controversial novel, Girls of Riyadh, which recounts the live lives of four girls in the ultra-conservative kingdom.
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