Ticino author Fabio Pusterla resigns from AdS in protest
Published: Monday, Apr 15th 2024, 18:30
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The Swiss Authors' Association (AdS) has been debating for months whether and how the association should take a political stance, not least on the situation in the Middle East. Now the Ticino author Fabio Pusterla is pulling the ripcord and resigning.
Fabio Pusterla criticizes his resignation in an open letter. "The lack of political and political-cultural reflection and debate within the association", he writes in his open letter on the naufraghi.ch website.
In it, he accuses the AdS of dealing "almost exclusively" with technical aspects. And he suspects that many members only want to be protected as writers "with regard to copyright, the threat of artificial intelligence, etc.".
At the same time, Pusterla quotes from the association's statutes, according to which the AdS has set itself the goal of defending freedom of expression and respect for human rights in the international arena. According to Pusterla in his letter, he has the impression "that these words have been a waste of time for some time now".
Nicolas Couchepin, President of the AdS, confirmed to the Keystone-SDA news agency that a group of authors led by Pusterla had already initiated the discussion last fall. But the association has to represent 1,300 writers of different languages, even from several countries. "We can't just take a stand like that," he said, referring to the association's general assembly (AGM) on May 9.
AGM to approve further action
The plan is to present an action plan to the AGM, which will have to be voted on. "It is possible that Pusterla was not sufficiently informed about the steps we had planned," said Couchepin. He repeatedly emphasized that he was sorry about this. In addition, he sees it as the association's duty to ensure that authors can also express themselves within this framework.
Couchepin also referred to a meeting with Pusterla on December 2 last year. At that time, the author had announced that he wanted to wait three months. This period has now expired. The attempts to initiate a debate on these issues "have obviously had no effect", he wrote. Hence his resignation.
Couchepin, in turn, promised to publish the association's position and proposals on how to proceed in the next AdS newsletter. This is due to appear on April 22. In this respect, "Pusterla has resigned just a few days too early".
Fabio Pusterla, who has been awarded a Swiss Literature Prize (2013), the Swiss Schiller Prize and the Gottfried Keller Prize (2009) several times, works as a poet, translator and essayist. Several of his volumes of poetry are available in German translation; his most recent publication is "In der vorläufigen Ruhe des Flugs / Nella quiete provvisoria del volo" (2021).
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