Annie Ernaux, Paul Mescal and Julian Barnes are among 160 cultural figures who have condemned the halt to sales of Irish novelist Sally Rooney’s books in the UK over her support for the banned group Palestine Action, in an open letter published by the New Statesman.
“Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist,” the signatories wrote in the short letter.
They include some of the biggest names in world literature: Canadian poet and classicist Anne Carson, winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature, French author Ernaux, British novelist Barnes, India’s Arundhati Roy and Ireland’s Colm Tóibín.
Film and television figures also signed, among them Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, known for the adaptation of Rooney’s bestseller ‘Normal People’, actors Tilda Swinton and Jessie Buckley, and British director Jonathan Glazer.
It was announced last week that Rooney’s books would no longer be sold in Britain because of her support for Palestine Action. Britain’s Labour government proscribed the group as a terrorist organisation in July 2025, making any financial or material support for it illegal.
In August 2025, Rooney said in The Irish Times that she intended to give part of her royalties, including earnings from television adaptations of her work, to the pro-Palestinian group.
The signatories said the measure was based on draconian and ill-conceived anti-terror legislation and was an affront to long-held principles of free speech and expression in Britain. They said they categorically rejected censorship, whether direct or indirect, and urged the government of Prime Minister Andy Burnham to change course by amending the law.
More than 3,700 people have been arrested at protests in support of Palestine Action since it was banned, according to the campaign group Defend Our Juries.
Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, is challenging the ban in court. Britain’s Supreme Court will hear the case in early November.
(information from amna.gr)
