The Belarusian Writer Svetlana Alexievich Received The Oxfam Novib/PEN Award on November 25. In her acceptance speech Alexievich underlined the long road for Belarus to travel before everybody can say what they want.

 Svetlana Alexievich, one of the four winners of the Oxfam Novib/PEN award. The Oxfam Novib/PEN Award is an annual prize to honour writers and journalists who were persecuted, arrested or jailed for their work. This year four writers were honoured. In addition to Alexievich, who got the authorities up in arms for her writing openly on the problems in Chernobyl, three other female writers were honoured. Lydia Cacho Ribeiro is a Mexican writer who researched and published on child pornography networks. Fatou Jaw Manneh is from Gambia and critically monitors events in her country. And then finally, the Egyptian Ekbal Baraka Ekbal who is fighting for the freedom of expression in her country.

Tea circle

The awards were presented during the Crossing Border festival. The Dutch writer Abdelkader Baneli spoke over democracy. He referred to Salman Rushdie’s words of the day before in The Hague: “Democracy is no tea circle. Be rude to ideas, but polite to the people that have them.” Benali also pleaded for the freedom of expression, but placed question marks with the desire to hurt. “Why would the freedom of expression not be able to take the form of a tea circle,” Benali asked himself. “What is wrong with a tea circle?”

Love

What is it like to get hurt, also the question of Susan Abulhawa, writer of the novel ‘David’s Scar’. The Palestinian Abulhawa spoke almost stoically about the disruptions orthodox Jews cause during her lectures and performances. They accuse her of anti-Semitism. And that whilst she is primarily interested in human relations and has an aversion for stigmatisation, she told! “My book is above all about love”, said Abulhawa,”I don’t want to judge. I think that I have described with love both my Palestinian characters and my Israeli ones. My judgement! I leave that to the reader.”

Meaningful

In his contribution Jan Bouke Wijbrand, director campaigns of Oxfam Novib, emphasised the importance of the Oxfam Novib/PEN award. Two writers honoured with the award in the past, Anna Politovskaja and Hrant Dink, paid with their lives for their work. This only adds more meaning to the Oxfam Novib/PEN award, said Wijbrandi.

Source: Oxfam Novib
Author: Robbert Bodegraven