Paris Book Fair fraught with political tension

"During violent periods, no space is left uninvaded by politics, its priorities, its moral values, its demands. Acts and gestures are over-symbolised and nobody appears able escape the implacable logic of political interpretation", explains Joëlle Kuntz. "The Paris Book Fair is experiencing a miniature, farcical version of what Middle Eastern citizens alas endure every day: there is no question of art, literature or constructive thinking, but only of 'positions', of 'legitimacy' and of 'justifications'. Writers there are not artists, but 'dissidents' or 'collaborators'. ... Boycotting is the political arm of the weak who are crushed by politics and only place their hope in the radicalism of a refusal. They have lost faith in a solution for peace. They have stopped looking for one."

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