Two children’s laureates to give Sally Rooney royalties after ban on UK sales
Two children’s laureates have pledged to donate royalties to author Sally Rooney after she was forced to stop selling her books in the UK due to her support for Palestine Action.
The ban on Rooney’s books in the UK was introduced after she publicly supported the direct action group Palestine Action. The group became the first to be proscribed under the UK Terrorism Act in July last year, placing it in the same category as al-Qaida and Boko Haram. Rooney, the author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends, said she would use the proceeds from her UK sales to support the group.
Haughton, whose books have sold millions worldwide, said he wanted to demonstrate the “absurdity” of the situation. He has twice been arrested for holding placards allegedly supporting Palestine Action, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison. “The entire situation is just a farce,” Haughton said. “Sending Sally Rooney the money adds another level of absurdity to this absurd situation, it’s making a mockery of the law.”
“I really want to express my full support for Sally Rooney. As someone who is in the UK a lot of the time, I can’t do what she has done, but I can support her instead of supporting Palestine Action.”
Nicola Davies, the children’s laureate for Wales, said she could not stand by while children in Gaza were being killed. Her book, The Day War Came, is about a child refugee from war. She said Gaza is smaller than the Welsh county of Flintshire and that it was as if all Wales’s children were concentrated there and being bombed. She will donate the royalties from her book to Rooney.
“I can’t say that I am standing up for the children of Wales if I allow the children of Gaza to be murdered and mutilated without comment.”
Haughton said Palestine Action was the most effective organisation in the UK in stopping arms going to a genocide. Providing money to a proscribed group, knowing it may be used for terrorism, carries a maximum jail term of 14 years. The ban on Rooney’s books has been challenged in the Supreme Court on the basis that it interferes disproportionately with the rights to freedom of expression and protest. The court is due to hear the case on 4 and 5 November.
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