Mick Hartley

At the start of the week the T.S.Eliot poetry prize was awarded to Jen Hadfield, the youngest ever winner, and, as it happens, a woman. In Saudi Arabia they do these things differently:

A fire broke out in a tent of the Sakaka Literary Club Monday evening before a poetry recital that was planned for Tuesday night with the participation of a woman poet. Police have not ruled out foul play related to the event.

Chairman of the club, Ibrahim Al-Humaid, who also did not dismiss the possibility of foul play, said since the announcement that Halima Muzafar would take part, members of the club had received calls demanding that the event be canceled.

“I have received disturbing calls demanding the cancellation of the poetic night because of the participation of a woman poet,” he said.

Two other renowned Saudi poets, Abdul Aziz Al-Sharif and Muhammad Khidir Al-Ghamdi, were also to take part in the event.

Al-Humaid was astonished by the solid stand against the participation of a woman even when the women’s section of the cultural tent attached to the club was completely separated from the men’s section.

“We only transmit the voices of men to the women’s section and vice versa,” he said. The event has been indefinitely postponed.