The author John Boyne has accused University College Dublin’s Literary and Historical Society of “cowardice” following its decision to withdraw an honour it planned to bestow on him.
Mr Boyne said he was baffled and disappointed by the move.
In a social media post on Friday, the writer said he had received a letter from the society last month awarding him the James Joyce Award which, he said, has been described as “the highest honour any student body in Ireland can bestow”.
However, it subsequently said the honour was no longer on the table, according to the author.
RM Block
Mr Boyne, who is best known for his bestselling 2006 novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, said the reasons for offering him the prize “were deeply moving and I felt honoured”.
He shared the letter from the Literary and Historical Society, in which it stated that it was honouring him “as one of Ireland’s most celebrated and courageous literary voices and a proud Dubliner”.
It added that he had “consistently tackled the themes that matter – identity, morality, power, shame and the search for truth with searing honesty and compassion”.
“In a world that is increasingly divided and uncertain your insistence on empathy, justice and authenticity is more vital than ever.”
The letter stated that the author confronted “uncomfortable truths with courage” and in doing so offered his readers, “especially young people, a mirror in which they can better understand themselves and the society they live in”.
However, the author then noted that “by an unhappy coincidence, the Polari Prize nonsense blew up the following day and, from my very first reply, my messages [to UCD’s Literary and Historical Society regarding its letter] over the next six weeks were completely ignored, as were messages from my agent”.
Last month the Polari Prize, the annual literary prize for LGBTQ+ literature, announced it planned to “pause” the prize this year following a controversy around the nomination of a book by Mr Boyne.
Its longlist for this year’s Book of the Year prize included his novel Earth. After its inclusion was announced, more than half of this year’s nominated authors – all of whom are born or work in the UK and Ireland – withdrew their books from the longlist and two judges resigned.
The controversy stemmed largely from a birthday tribute Mr Boyne wrote for author JK Rowling in the Sunday Independent in late July. In it, he referred to himself as a “fellow Terf”. Terf is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist.
In the article he said that “Rowlings’s critics claim she is transphobic, the greatest sin of our time and use the usual tedious hyperbole to demonise her”.
He added that her “supporters on the other hand, are encouraged by the advocacy of a domestic violence survivor, who believes women are entitled to safe spaces, that opportunities for women in academia or sports should not be stolen from them, that a lesbian who refuses to allow men into her dating pool is not a bigot, and that children should not be subjected to medical experimentation when they’re too young to make informed decisions about their future.
“For those perfectly rational beliefs, she has been pilloried by three distinct types of person, the middle aged men who have been rejected by women all their lives, and have now abandoned the real world in favour of taking out their frustrations on social media. There’s the young people so indoctrinated by social media that they fail to recognise actual misogyny and homophobia when they see it. And there are the grown women who are astonishingly complicit in their own erasure.”
In his latest social media post on Friday, he said that “this morning, under threat of legal action, [the society] finally deigned to respond [to his earlier messages], simply informing me that they were withdrawing the award”.
He described as “baffling” that an organisation “can say that my ‘insistence on empathy, justice, and authenticity is more vital than ever’, that I ‘confront uncomfortable truths with courage’, and that for ‘college students navigating questions of identity, belonging, and ethical responsibility, your work is not only moving, it is essential’ and then rescind their prize when I demonstrate those very qualities”.
Mr Boyne said the society’s “cowardice [was] disappointing, but at least it gives me another opportunity to be clear.
“Awards are ultimately meaningless. The books matter. Readers matter. And if using one’s platform to defend the rights of women, children, lesbians and gay men means that some plaque doesn’t end up on my wall ... well, I won’t be losing any sleep over it.”
The Irish Times has contacted the Literary and Historical society for comment.
*This article was amended on Friday, September 12th to more accurately reflect what John Boyne wrote in the Sunday Independent
