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Rebecca F Kuang, the author behind bestsellers such as the Poppy War trilogy, Yellowface and Babel, or the Necessity of Violence, has announced that she will not be participating in the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature, to be held in Dubai from January 21 to 27. The author said she took the decision in light of “current events in Sudan”.

Kuang made the announcement through an Instagram story where she shared a message she’d sent to the organisers, telling them she is “no longer able to travel to Dubai to attend the Festival of Literature”. She explained this was because she was “adhering now to the Palestinian BDS National Committee’s recent call [for a boycott of the UAE] given the mass atrocities in Sudan”.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement, often called BDS, describes itself as a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. It calls on people to boycott companies working with or in Israel or complicit institutions, divest investments from companies in Israel or that support Israel and for governments to sanction the state.

Saying she’d “always respected organised calls for cultural boycotts against genocide from communities directly affected and in particular, guidelines set forth by the BDS movement”, the author asked to be removed from the festival’s programme and social media material.

Kuang apologised to the organisers, acknowledging their efforts as “a labour of love” and saying she was “sorry that the burden for dealing with state actions…falls on you in this way”. She said she’d love to join the event “when there is no longer a need for a boycott”.

Kuang has explored themes of imperialism and the impacts of colonialism in her books. Her debut novel, The Poppy War, which birthed a trilogy, was loosely based on Japan’s invasion of China during the Second World War. Her bestselling work Babel, or the Necessity of Violence is an alternate history novel based around the First Opium War and heavily criticises British colonialism.

Sudan remains locked in a bloody civil war between the internationally recognised Sudanese government in Khartoum and the Rapid Support Force (RSF) — a paramilitary organisation — ever since the RSF tried taking power in 2023.

Last month, the International Criminal Court accused the RSF of crimes against humanity following an 18-month siege of the town of El-Fasher, which ended with the militia taking over the city — the last government stronghold in the country’s Darfur region.

While there are no absolute figures for how many people have been killed in in the conflict, the figure is said to be in the tens of thousands, with 12 million displaced — creating the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.

The United Arab Emirates has been accused by the United Nations of arming the RSF, with Sudan taking the UAE to the International Court of Justice and accusing it of supporting genocide in March. While Abu Dhabi denies the charges, calls for a boycott of the UAE has been gaining momentum, with the BDS movement joining the call in November.

Cover photo: RF Kuang/Instagram