“We will not submit future works to Éditions Grasset”

21 internationale Autoren, darunter die südkoreanische Literaturnobelpreisträgerin Han Kang, veröffentlichen einen Offenen Brief in Sachen des Verlags Édition Grasset. Nachdem der Verleger Olivier Nora von dem Eigentümer Vincent Bolloré entlassen wurde, erklärten fast 200 französischprachige Autorinnen und Autoren, künftig nicht mehr mit Édition Grasset zusammenarbeiten und die Rechte an ihren Büchern zurückfordern zu wollen. Dazu haben  jetzt 21 internationale Autoren, deren Bücher bislang in Übersetzung bei Èdition Grasset veröffentlicht worden den folgenden Offenen Brief unterschrieben.

As authors published on Éditions Grasset’s international list, we express our grave concern for the future of this house, its editorial integrity, and the teams who sustain it.

The dismissal of Olivier Nora for his editorial choices suggests that no editor at Grasset or within Hachette is now secure, that acquiring editors may be dismissed at any time without continuity or protection, and that the conditions of editorial independence have been fundamentally undermined.

We stand with Olivier Nora, with our editors and their teams, and with the authors who have already spoken out. We also stand with those authors who are contractually bound and cannot prevent their books from being published under these conditions.

It has been an honour to be translated into French and published by such a dedicated, world-class team. This makes the present situation all the more difficult, and the decisions we have taken all the more painful.

Many of us signed with Éditions Grasset before its acquisition by Vincent Bolloré. We refuse to see our work used to serve political ends we do not share.

The far right operates across borders; it must be resisted across borders. As matters stand, we will not submit future works to Éditions Grasset.

List of signatories:

Solvej Balle (Nordic Council Literature Prize), Adam Biles, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (National Book Award), Thomas Chatterton Williams, Joshua Cohen (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction), Claudia Durastanti, Urszula Honek, Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen, Han Kang (Nobel Prize in Literature), Andrew McMillan, Fernanda Melchor, Samanta Schweblin (National Book Award for Translated Literature), Ali Smith (Women’s Prize for Fiction), Bergþóra Snæbjörnsdóttir, Jón Kalman Stefánsson (Icelandic Literature Prize), Colm Tóibín (Folio Prize), Frank Trentmann, Diego Vecchio, Sandro Veronesi (Strega Prize), Katharina Volckmer, Uwe Wittstock (Prix littéraire de la Résistance)