South African-born novelist JM Coetzee, widely regarded as the world's most decorated living author and a Nobel Prize laureate, has declined an invitation to the Jerusalem International Writers Festival (an annual literary gathering held in Israel each spring), citing Israel's "genocidal campaign in Gaza" as his reason for refusing. In a letter sent to festival organisers in November, Coetzee wrote that Israel's military conduct since October 2023 had been "vastly disproportionate" to the attacks of 7 October and that its intellectual and arts community could not escape shared blame for the atrocities. The 86-year-old, who once accepted the Jerusalem Prize in 1987 and described himself as a former supporter of Israel, warned that "it will take many years for Israel to clear its name" in the international community.