Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
You may be familiar with the Irish Millennial novelist Sally Rooney. Her second novel Normal People was adapted into a TV miniseries which launched the careers of Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. I've never read any of her novels, but based on the excerpts I've read, they really do not sound like my cup of tea. I've heard multiple critics independently compare her novels (at least, the first two or three) to Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey, arguing that, while they're marketed as sophisticated, class-conscious chronicles of Millennial Irish angst, they're ultimately just sadomasochistic romantic fantasies for women with NPR tote bags.
Being both Irish and painfully leftist (she routinely characterises herself as a Marxist), of course Rooney has a bee in her bonnet about Israel, refusing for many years to allow her novels to be translated into Hebrew and occasionally going on (in my opinion) deranged rants about how freeing Palestine means freeing the entire world or something. She recently announced her intention to donate the royalties of sales of her novels within the UK to Palestine Action, which would constitute a criminal offense, as Palestine Action is a proscribed terrorist organisation. And with good reason: several of their members broke into a British arms facility with the intent of smashing up the place and, when confronted by police officers, struck a female officer with a sledgehammer hard enough to break her spine. In their spare time, they also go around London under cover of darkness smearing red paint on businesses owned by
JewsZionists. As distributing royalties to her knowing that she intends to donate them to a proscribed organisation would put them in breach of the law, her UK publisher Faber & Faber have announced their decision (with Rooney's blessing) to withdraw her novels from publication within the UK. Naturally, this has resulted in a massive spike in sales before the withdrawal comes into effect, along with an open letter making some very idiotic comparisons between Rooney and Salman Rushdie. Voluntarily withdrawing your books from publication is not censorship (as Brendan O'Neill notes, if Rooney really wanted to funnel her money into Palestine Action's coffers, I'm sure she could do so under the table – no need to make such a big song and dance out of it). No one has issued a fatwa on Rooney's head, nor will they ever.The whole thing is very dumb and retarded, and reading about it is making me depressed.
Refusing to have her novels merely translated into Hebrew or refusing to have them published in Israel in Hebrew?
Digging into it, it seems it was closer to the latter than the former.
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