Dhe German writer Ronya Othmann was not known in Pakistan until last weekend. Her novel “The Summers” was published in Sri Lanka and will soon be published in India. But not in Pakistan. It was all the more astonishing what happened when the author arrived in Karachi on Friday, where she had been invited by the Goethe Institute and the Karachi Literature Festival to read from her novel and her poems: she was welcomed with an open letter Pakistani feminists and activists defamed her and threatened consequences if Othmann appeared at the festival. They referred, sometimes incompletely and misleadingly, to the columns that the writer writes for the features section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung – texts that only appear in German.
“Concerned Pakistanis”?
“We, the signatories,” the open letter said, “write as concerned Pakistanis to express our deep concern and outrage at the Karachi Literature Festival’s decision to invite Ronya Othmann as a speaker.” Othmann is a Germany-based writer who represents “Zionist and Islamophobic positions” and has taken part in discussions aimed at “discrediting pro-Palestinian protests in Germany as anti-Semitic and Islamist.” A column from the FAS from October 22, 2023 is mentioned. She is also a critic of the BDS.
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