Writers protest the closure of their centres by gov’t
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, July 2
Georgian writers have boycotted the Georgian Literature Fund, created to replace the House of Writers of Georgia and the Georgian Book Centre, after the two were closed by the Georgian Ministry of Education last month.
“Our response is the complete disobedience to the ministry and the government’s decision,” writers say in their open letter released on Monday.
The signatories say that the employees of both institutions, “who have done their utmost for years to promote the Georgian literature,” have not been dismissed.
“Our boycott will be comprehensive and very noisy, with the involvement of international organisations, we will find alternative opportunities to print our books,” writers warn.
The letter reads that the Georgian Book Centre and its head Dea Metreveli “did an excellent job,” last year to present Georgia worthily at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
“And they managed to completely change [to positive] the attitude to Georgia and its literature,” the letter reads.
The signatories say that the “Georgian government ignored this and other merits of the centres” and created “serious threats” to the preparations for the 2021 Paris Book Fair.
“The government is trying to make us accept the unacceptable changes. We have such an impression that people are being punished in the country for serving the homeland,” writers say.
Writers stated that they would never accept the closure of the centres, subordinated to the Ministry of Education, but were free in decision-making.
Writers say that the organisations, which were created in 2008, must be maintained as they have been for years, to serve the Georgian culture.
Several of the writers say that the government “is taking revenge” for writers’ joint support to poet Zviad Ratiani last year when Ratiani was abused by police.
They say that writers protested upon the incident in Frankfurt, which irritated the Georgian top figures.
The Georgian Ministry of Culture claims that the merger of the two centres is necessary for further development and the support of the Georgian culture and literature.
The Writers House of Georgia was located in a historic building on the Machabeli Street in central Tbilisi, built in 1905. The Union of Georgian Writers had used the building between 1921 and 2007.
