Author refuses literary prize of 150,000 euros

Boyd Tonkin writes in The Independent about the author Juan Goytisolo who was to be awarded “an International Prize for Literature awarded by an eminent panel of Arab jurors. Its value would be 150,000 euros. Goytisolo esteemed the judges – who included the excellent Libyan novelist Ibrahim al Koni – but found himself having to confront ‘a very big but’. The prize money came from the Libyan state. So he refused.”