New Delhi: The latest winner of the coveted Nellie Sachs prize, Kamila Shamsie found herself stripped of the honour after the Dortmund jury responsible for conferring the award reversed its decision.

The prize was taken from her after the jury discovered her support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The highly-acclaimed Pakistani-British author, who is known for her prize winning works such as Kartography and Broken Verses, was declared to be the winner on September 6.

However, in a statement released by the city on Wednesday, the jury decided to not only revert its earlier decision but also to not nominate anyone for this year.

"Despite prior research, the members of the jury were not aware that the author has been participating in the boycott measures against the Israeli government for its Palestinian policies since 2014," the statement read.

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"Shamsie's political positioning to actively participate in the cultural boycott as part of the BDS (Boycott Disinvestment Sanctions) campaign against the Israeli government is clearly in contradiction to the statutory objectives of the award and the spirit of the Nelly Sachs Prize."

The Nelly Sachs prize, awarded by the German city of Dortmund, is given in honour of the Jewish poet Nelly Sachs and her literary work.

Shamsie took to Twitter to express her disappointment. She said that it was a “matter of outrage” that the BDS movement which campaigns against the acts of “brutality and discrimination” of the Israeli government against Palestinians was being held up as “something shameful and unjust”.

"It is a matter of great sadness to me that a jury should bow to pressure and withdraw a prize from a writer who is exercising her freedom of conscience and freedom of expression" the 46-year-old author tweeted. According to The Guardian, the city of Dortmund refused to publish her statement along with their press release.

The BDS movement was founded in 2005 with the aim of ending Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the grant of equal rights of the Arabs as that of the Jewish community in Israel. Shamsie has been an active supporter of the movement since 2014 and in the past called for a cultural boycott of Israel.

The German parliament had passed a motion in May which labelled the BDS movement as anti-Semitic, calling it “reminiscent of the most terrible chapter in German history”. No sooner had this motion been passed than it came under dire criticism from about 60 Jewish and Israeli scholars who stated in an open letter that the motion was part of a trend to label “supporters of Palestinian human rights as anti-Semitic.”

Support soon poured in for the London-based author on social media.

“If fiction writers & authors like Kamila Shamsie will be punished for their political beliefs then what will be the future of literature? German Literary Authority must seriously consider its political decision making,” prominent blogger, columnist and television anchor Moeed Pirzada tweeted on Wednesday.

The novelist Ahdaf Soueif said the withdrawal of the award was “a manifestation of a new McCarthyism on an international scale”.

Shamsie is the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2018. She is the author of five novels including Burnt Shadows which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and has been translated into over 20 languages.

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