It is, according to Margaret Atwood, a "dog's breakfast", and she can scarcely have written a truer word. The Booker prize-winning author should today have been packing for a trip to Dubai, to appear on Friday at the first ever literary festival to be held in the Emirates. Instead, she will remain in Canada, following an international literary storm over censorship and freedom of speech that has spiralled into unseemly accusations of moral cowardice, publicity seeking and folly.
In a remarkable intervention into an already murky mess, Atwood in the Guardian today declares that she regrets withdrawing from the festival, and did so having been wrongfully led to believe that a book by the Observer journalist Geraldine Bedell had been banned both from the festival and the Emirates themselves.
Writing exclusively in today's Guardian Review, the author suggests that she was "stampeded" into a misconception by a publicity campaign for Bedell's book, berates Bedell for using the word "ban", and declares she has been left with egg "all over my face".
The row began brewing on Monday, when newspaper reports emerged of a "ban" imposed by the festival on The Gulf Between Us, a novel by Bedell, because one of its characters, a sheikh in a fictional Gulf state, was gay. Bedell had been told by the festival organisers that her book was unsuitable for inclusion because they "[did] not want our festival remembered for the launch of a controversial book", she told reporters. Meanwhile, her publishers, Penguin, had been told by booksellers in UAE that the novel itself had been censored by the authorities.
Outraged, Atwood, who is a vice-president of the literary anti-censorship organisation PEN, withdrew immediately from the festival. Other contributors spoke out in Bedell's defence, including the children's author Anthony Horowitz, who emailed his concerns to the organisers, and the Orange prize-winning novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
But what exactly were the events surrounding Bedell's novel and its non-inclusion at the festival? On that point, confusion, and worse, has been rife, with a torrent of occasionally ill-tempered, and frequently contradictory, allegations and counter-allegations. As Atwood writes today, citing blog reports and "other commentators": "From reading the press [about the apparent 'ban'], I got the impression that [Bedell's] book had been scheduled to launch at the festival, and that the launch had then been cancelled, for whiff-o'-gay-sheikh reasons; and that furthermore, Bedell herself had been prohibited from attending the festival, and also from travelling in Dubai."
On speaking to Isobel Abulhoul, the festival's director, however, she was told that this was not the case, she writes. Rather, the festival director had sent a "candid" and somewhat naive email of rejection, which "was carefully guarded by someone - who? - until now, when it was hurled into the press with great publicity effect, easily stampeding people like me." Atwood, upset that her principled stance was taken under what she now sees as false pretences, and protective of the "first-time festivalite" Abulhoul, says her "head is spinning" as a result of the controversy.
On Thursday, a UAE newspaper quoted the head of censorship at the country's National Media Council (NMC), denying the novel had ever been banned. As such, Atwood argues, the words "banned" and "censored" were "not helpful".
Yesterday, contacted by the Guardian, Bedell expressed regret that the row had escalated, saying she would prefer to "take the heat" out of the discussion. "The point is that the organisers didn't want it at the festival because it was too controversial." As for her use of the word "ban", she said: "I think that word was appropriate based on my understanding of what the situation was at the time."
The Guardian has seen an email from Abulhoul, dated 19 September 2008, in which she says the novel was "extremely well written and should sell well" but continues: "However it is definitely not a book that we can launch at EAIFL for the following reasons: one of the Sheikhs is gay and has an English boyfriend; it talks about Islam and queries what is said; it is set in the Gulf and focuses on the Iraq war and could be a minefield for us."
Bedell added that Atwood had not attempted to speak to her about the controversy. "By her own admission she's in a tizz about the whole thing, and I could have cleared it all up."
In a statement, Juliet Annan, publishing director of Penguin Books UK, said that after submitting the manuscript for the novel last summer, the publisher was told by Abulhoul that "although the book was warm and funny ... there was too much that was controversial in it for her to have the author and feature the book at the festival".
As for the alleged "banning" of the manuscript: "We don't have direct contact with the censor's office on these matters, we rely on information from the booksellers and they told us it was banned. That is why the story broke now - not because Bedell 'saved it up' for publication." The novel will not be published until April.
Bedell may feel that the controversy has got out of hand, but the story is not ready to die. Writing in last night's London Evening Standard, the paper's literary editor, David Sexton, called on all authors attending to the Dubai festival to "ask themselves what they think they are doing". Atwood, meanwhile, hopes to take part, by video link, in a session on freedom of speech. A spokeswoman for the festival said Abulhoul was "delighted" that Atwood was eager to participate in some form.