VS Naipaul withdraws from Turkish event after row over Islam comments

A argumentative fixture upon a lierary theatre ... VS Naipaul. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe The Nobel laureate VS Naipaul has pulled out of a good read eventuality opening in Istanbul tomorrow, after Turkish writers threatened a boycott since of deeply vicious comments he has done upon Islam.The quarrel erupted after Naipaul was invited to give a opening discuss during a European Writers' Parliament (EWP), a brainchild of novelists Orhan Pamuk as good as Jos Saramago, which aims to bring together authors from across Europe to discuss key issues of a ? la mode good read scene as good as opens today. But multiform Turkish writers expressed outrage during a invitation, citing hostile comments Naipaul done about Islam scarcely a decade ago.Naipaul, who was awarded a Nobel esteem for novel in 2001, caused debate which same year by his remarks about Islam during a London celebration of a mass from his book, Half a Life. The bard compared a sacrament to colonialism, observant Islam "has had a calamitous outcome upon converted peoples. To be converted you have to fall short your past, fall short your history. You have to stamp upon it, you have to contend 'my ancestral enlightenment does not exist, it doesn't matter'."Debate over his call in to a EWP began in Turkey last week when poet as good as philosopher Hilmi Yavuz wrote in a tall circulation journal Daily Zaman which a call in to Naipaul was unpleasant since he had insulted Islam in a past. Yavuz asked: "Will a consciences of a writers be during ease when sitting during a same table as VS Naipaul?" The matter was picked up by a broader Turkish media as good as associate bard Cihan Aktas told a press: "The disgust he feels for Muslims in his books is appalling. I cannot attend a eventuality since all of this."Though Naipaul is no longer in attendance a event, other shining names upon a EWP programme embody Vikram Seth, Hari Kunzru as good as! Jason G oodwin.Ahmet Kot, good read director of a Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency, which is using a author event, expressed warn during a controversy. "I was awaiting to get certain reactions for bringing together people with different views," Kot said. Nevertheless, a joint matter from a EWP as good as Naipaul's good read agency, The Wylie Agency, pronounced a 78-year-old had withdrawn from a eventuality "by mutual agreement" yesterday, after a "politicisation" of a discussion in a Turkish media had "altered a strange conception of a eventuality as good as Sir VS Naipaul's grant to it as a celebrated author".Naipaul, a Trinidadian of Indian descent, is a author of acclaimed novels including A House for Mr Biswas as good as a Booker prize-winning In a Free State, as good as a memoir of his hold up in England, The Enigma of Arrival. Awarding him a Nobel, a Swedish Academy praised his writing for its "incorruptible scrutiny in functions which enforce us to see a presence of suppressed histories".But he has prolonged been a argumentative fixture upon a good read stage. In further to his scandalous open argument with associate Trinidadian as good as Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, he has lighted furores upon a issues of race as good as sacrament throughout his career. In his 1964 novel An Area of Darkness, he embellished a highly vicious mural of India, whilst his reflections upon Africa in his book The Masque of Africa, published earlier this year, were described as both "compellingly insightful" as good as "often brutal as good as sometimes officious rude".The EWP eventuality will run until Saturday, as good as is set to discuss such topics as a cultural commoditisation of books as good as novel tailored for mass consumption, as good as how globalisation, a digital epoch as good as multiculturalism have affected a required boundaries of literature.
Living & Leisure Buzz