IPA reveals 2020 Prix Voltaire shortlist

This year’s Prix Voltaire award shortlist has been revealed by the International Publishers Association (IPA).

The shortlist is picked by nine publishing professionals from around the world, recognising publishers, individuals, groups or organisations who stand firm on freedom to publish, be it as longstanding defenders of these values or having recently published works despite pressure, threats, intimidation or harassment from various sources.

Turkish publishing house Avesta Yayinlari, which has faced lawsuits for a number of its 700 books, has been shortlisted. In 2016 its warehouse was subject to an arson attack destroying 3,000 books and leading to the closure of its store. The publishing house owner Abdullah Keskin was was investigated in 2019 on charges of propaganda for terrorist organisations. The company received the Turkish Publishers Association Freedom of Thought & Expression Award in 2019.

Also shortlisted is Chong Ton Sin, who launched Gerakbudaya Publishing House in Malaysia in 2000 and academic imprint SIRD in 2003. The prize described the publisher's aims as creating a publishing house and distributor for “controversial but important” books in all the country’s major languages.

Liberal Publishing House in Vietnam is also on the list. Founded in 2019, the publisher is descibed by the IPA as a “direct challenge” to government control of the publishing industry in Vietnam, known as samizdat—the illegal copying and distribution of books. Involvement can carry a jail term of 20 years leading Liberal Publishing House to operate clandestinely. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called for the intimidation and harassment of Liberal Publishing House to stop.

Also nominated is Maktaba-e-Daniyal in Pakistan, the publisher of Booker-longlisted satirical novel A Case of Exploding Mangos by journalist Mohammed Hanif about Pakistan’s former martial law administrator/president Gen Zia-ul-Haq. The book was published in Urdu in Pakistan by Maktaba-e-Daniyal in November 2019 and in January 2020 copies were confiscated in a raid on the publisher. The book was launched in English in 2008 (Vintage) and won the Commonwealth First Book Prize in 2009.

Chair of IPA’s freedom to publish committee Kristenn Einarsson said: “The shortlist is made up of four remarkable publishers who put themselves at great risk to bring books they deem valuable to readers. We celebrate their bravery and thank them for being an inspiration to publishers around the world.”

The winner will be announced at the 33rd International Publishers Congress in Lillehammer, Norway, in May.

Last year’s prize of £7,500 was awarded to imprisoned Egyptian publisher and bookseller Khaled Lotfy, who was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of divulging military secrets and spreading rumours for having distributed an Arabic translation of the book The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel, by Uri Bar-Joseph.