She took the microphone and said she was “surprised, shocked and distressed” that, having come to speak out about the treatment of Rushdie, she now needed to defend Cosaw. “I think that it is very surprising to me that my friend and colleague John Coetzee, without really discussing it with me or anyone in Cosaw, has sprung this public attack upon us. But that is a democratic right and that is what we are here to defend.”
Remembering the confrontation between Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee over the Salman Rushdie incident in South Africa. [via The Guardian]
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