Ubud Writers and Readers festival claimed it could not afford the Nobel laureate’s ‘11th-hour’ change to terms
Nobel laureate VS Naipaul will no longer be appearing at a literary festival in Bali after the event declined to meet what it described as his “11th-hour request” for a $20,000 (£11,000) appearance fee.
Naipaul, who is 82, had been booked with great fanfare for the Ubud Writers and Readers festival, which is due to take place in October in the Balinese town. Describing itself as “Southeast Asia’s largest and most renowned cultural and literary event”, the festival has been running for 11 years since it was first established by Janet DeNeefe “as a healing project in response to the first Bali bombing”. This year’s programme features an impressive roster of award-winning writers from around the world including Eimear McBride, Val McDermid and Amitav Ghosh – but Naipaul will, the festival has now said, no longer be part of the line-up.
Organisers expressed their “sincere apologies and sadness for the change”, which they said “comes as the result of us being unable to accommodate Sir VS Naipaul’s 11th-hour requests”. The novelist won the Nobel prize in 2001 for “having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories”.
DeNeefe told the Guardian that “after having committed to the festival months ago, Sir VS Naipaul made an 11th-hour request for a $20,000 appearance fee that would have jeopardised the longevity of the UWRF and all of those involved”.
More
Naipaul, who is 82, had been booked with great fanfare for the Ubud Writers and Readers festival, which is due to take place in October in the Balinese town. Describing itself as “Southeast Asia’s largest and most renowned cultural and literary event”, the festival has been running for 11 years since it was first established by Janet DeNeefe “as a healing project in response to the first Bali bombing”. This year’s programme features an impressive roster of award-winning writers from around the world including Eimear McBride, Val McDermid and Amitav Ghosh – but Naipaul will, the festival has now said, no longer be part of the line-up.
Organisers expressed their “sincere apologies and sadness for the change”, which they said “comes as the result of us being unable to accommodate Sir VS Naipaul’s 11th-hour requests”. The novelist won the Nobel prize in 2001 for “having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories”.
DeNeefe told the Guardian that “after having committed to the festival months ago, Sir VS Naipaul made an 11th-hour request for a $20,000 appearance fee that would have jeopardised the longevity of the UWRF and all of those involved”.
More
No comments:
Post a Comment