Scandals during the opening ceremony of the Frankfurt Book Fair

As the final speaker at the opening ceremony of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek broke the consensus of solidarity with Israel that had been reaffirmed by all the speakers before him. He also condemned the attack by Hamas and defended Israel's right to self-defense. The philosopher voiced serious critical words about Israel. At that time, several listeners left the hall.

Philosopher Žižek ended his speech with the following thought. “It is the freedom of speech. Also, you must endure interruptions. I'm glad we listened to the speech until the end”. The audience applauded him.

This was not the only scandal at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair. There was another sensational incident on the opening day. The representatives of the Muslim countries canceled their participation and did so on the last day. “I'm very disappointed that they don't come because of geopolitics”, Jürgen Boos, director of the book fair, said at the opening and added, “They don't understand that we mourn the victims of both sides, but we stand firmly by Israel”.

Before the start of the fair, the decision not to award the literature prize to the Israeli-Arab writer Adania Shibli at the festival was criticized. She was awarded by the jury for her novel “Minor Detail”, and her drawing of Israeli characters was already criticized in the summer. Several hundred writers from around the world, including Nobel laureates Annie Ernaux, Abdulrazak Gurnah and Olga Tokarchuk, wrote a letter to the book fair on Monday calling for the decision to be reversed and Palestinian voices to be heard.