Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian-origin Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has turned down the prestigious Isamu Noguchi Award in protest over its organisers' ban on political dress for its staff.
The staff of Noguchi Museum in Queens county of United States' New York fired three of its employees for wearing Keffiyeh in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The museum last month that employees during their working hours could not wear clothing or accessories expressing “political messages, slogans or symbols”.
A particular kind of Keffiyeh, traditional headdress worn by men from parts of the Middle East, is the symbol of the Palestenian nationalism and resistance.
The New-York based museum was founded nearly 40 years ago by Noguchi, a Japanese American designer and sculptor.
Who Is Jhumpa Lahiri
Born in 1967 in UK's London to an Indian immigrant couple, Jhumpa Lahiri, won the 2000 Pulitzer for fiction for her debut, the story collection “Interpreter of Maladies”, and has since published several books of fiction and nonfiction in both English and Italian.
She is also the director of the creative writing programme at Barnard College in New York.
Lahiri was one of thousands of scholars who signed a letter to university presidents in May expressing solidarity with campus protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, calling it “unspeakable destruction”.
Expressing solidarity with Israelis or Palestinians have divided cultural institutions since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 last year, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.
Israel’s war on Gaza Strip post the Hamas attack has killed more than 41,000 people, according to local health authorities.
Jhumpa Lahiri's Declines Award
The museum said in a statement on Wednesday, “Jhumpa Lahiri has chosen to withdraw her acceptance of the 2024 Isamu Noguchi Award in response to our updated dress code policy.”
“We respect her perspective and understand that this policy may or may not align with everyone’s views,” The New York Times cited the statement.
Museum's dresscode policy, which does not apply to visitors, was instituted after several staff members had, over a period of months.
The museum, defending the prohibition earlier this month, said “such expressions can unintentionally alienate segments of our diverse visitorship”.
Several staffers reportedly signed a petition opposing the rule.
Lahiri was named as the Isamu Noguchi awardee along with Lee Ufan, a Korean-born minimalist painter, sculptor and poet and was to receive the award at the museum’s fall benefit gala next month.
