Literary magazine withdraws essay by Israeli writer after staffers quit

Guernica, a small but prestigious online literary magazine, has been in turmoil in recent days after publishing – and then retracting – a personal essay on coexistence and war in the Middle East by an Israeli writer, leading to several resignation of its volunteer staff members. who said they objected to its publication.

In a essay Entitled ‘From the Edges of a Broken World’, Joanna Chen, a translator of Hebrew and Arabic poetry and prose, had written about her experiences trying to bridge the gap with the Palestinians, including by volunteering to expel Palestinian children from the West Bank to care in Israeli hospitals, and how its efforts to find common ground failed after Hamas’ attack on October 7 and Israel’s subsequent attacks on Gaza.

It was replaced on Guernica’s web page with a note attributed to “admin” that said: “Guernica regrets publishing this piece and has retracted it,” and promised further explanation. Since the essay’s publication, at least 10 members of the magazine’s all-volunteer staff have resigned, including former co-publisher Madhuri Sastry. who wrote on social media that the essay “seeks to mitigate the violence of colonialism and genocide” and called for a cultural boycott of Israeli institutions.

Chen said in an email that she believed her critics had “misunderstood the meaning of my essay, which is about clinging to empathy when there is no human decency in sight.”

“It’s about the willingness to listen,” she said, “and the idea that turning a deaf ear to voices other than your own isn’t going to solve the problem.”

Michael Archer, Guernica’s founder, said the magazine would publish a response in the coming days. “The time we are taking to prepare this statement reflects both our understanding of the seriousness of the concerns raised and our commitment to addressing them in a meaningful way,” he wrote in a text.

The essay was published on March 4 and removed a few days later, according to the Wayback Machine, where the first person essay is still available in archived form.

Chen, who was born in England and moved to Israel with her family at the age of 16, writes in the essay about trying to reconnect with a Palestinian friend and former colleague after the October 7 attacks and not knowing how to should respond as her A friend texted back messages about Israeli attacks on a hospital complex in Gaza.

“More than terrible, Ultimately, I wrote, knowing that our conversation was over,” Chen’s essay said. “I felt inexplicably ashamed, as if she was pointing a finger at me. I also felt stupid: this was war, and whether I liked it or not, Nuha and I stood on opposite sides of the bridge I hoped to cross. I had been naive; this conflict was bigger than both of us.”

Chen said in the email that she worked on the essay — her second for Guernica — with the magazine’s editor-in-chief and publisher Jina Moore Ngarambe. Through emails and in an hour-long phone conversation, Chen said, “I got the distinct impression that my essay was appreciated. I received no indication that the editors were not on board.”

She still hasn’t heard from anyone at Guernica, she said Tuesday.

Ngarambe, who worked at The New York Times as East Africa bureau chief in 2017 and 2018, did not respond to requests for comment on Monday and Tuesday.

In the days following the essay’s online publication last week, several Guernica employees announced their resignations from X, calling the essay a betrayal of the editorial principles of the magazine, a nonprofit founded in 2004.

April Zhu, who resigned as editor-in-chief, wrote that she believed the article “fails or refuses to trace the form of power – in this case a violent, imperialist, colonial power – that makes the systematic and historical dehumanization of Palestinians the tacit condition for why it feels the need for ‘shared humanity’ in the first place ‘ to confirm. ‘) a non-problem.”

Summer Lopez, head of free speech programs at the writers group PEN America, said that “a writer’s published work should not be withdrawn from circulation because it arouses public outrage or sharp disagreement.”

“The pressure on American cultural institutions is enormous right now,” Lopez said in a statement. “Those on a mission to advance discourse must do so by safeguarding the freedom to write, read, imagine and tell stories.”

In a mission statement on its website, Guernica says it is “a home for sharp ideas and necessary questions.”