Alice Walker Refuses to Allow The Color Purple to be Published in Israel

Posted on June 20, 2012

Alice Walker is refusing to all her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning novel The Color Purple to be translated into Hebrew by Israeli publisher Yediot. Walker wrote in a letter that she refused the offer due to Israel's "apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people." The letter is reprinted on the website for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel.

In her letter Walker says, "I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse. Indeed, many South Africans who attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long."

She also writes that she hopes the the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement she is taking part in will "have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation."

The New York Daily News blasted Walker for her stance saying, "Actually, Walker is a fellow traveler of Hamas, which is once again firing rockets into Israel, and she is so deranged by anti-Israel fever as to verge on anti-Semitism." The Daily News criticizes her affiliation with BDS: "Walker is an adherent of the odious BDS movement - boycott, disinvestment and sanctions - which finds the Jewish state guilty of, essentially, the sins of existence and self-defense. She sees her part as barring distribution of her book in Hebrew, the national language of Israel."

There was a Hebrew edition of The Color Purple published in Israel in the 1980s. The novel was made into a feature film which was directed by Steven Spielberg. It starred Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards.