JM Coetzee declines to attend Jerusalem writers festival over Israel’s ‘genocidal campaign in Gaza’

Nobel laureate says he previously considered himself a supporter of Israel, but ‘the campaign of annihilation in Gaza has changed all that’

Nobel laureate JM Coetzee has declined to attend an upcoming literature festival in Israel, writing a excoriating letter to organisers citing the country’s “genocidal campaign” in Gaza, stating: “It will take many years for Israel to clear its name”.

The 86-year-old author, who was born in apartheid South Africa and lives in Australia, wrote to organisers of the Jerusalem international writers festival in November.