Many writers would prefer to carry that badge of universality, but Achebe who has gone to his grave without ever receiving the Nobel Prize he deserved as much as any novelist of his era has said that to be called simply a writer, rather than an African writer, is "a statement of defeat".
If a writer makes a statement that is partly qualified or totally contradicted in another article, the contributions of both writers must be scrutinized by the editorial staff, whose job it is to effect some kind of eventual agreement.
The incident reminded writer of a statement he heard several times in Vienna that Austria is more thana territorial concept--it is a frame of mind--and that a new, Austria-centered"Mitteleuropa" may soon emerge from the ruins of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Authors Guild, a trade group that represents writers, posted a statement on its Web site (authorsguild.org) on Tuesday disputing efforts by Random House to claim e-book rights to titles published before 1994.
The writers, in a statement of their own, said they had been presented with an unacceptable "ultimatum" that would have required them to drop many of their key demands if bargaining were to continue.
"Today, I lost one of my dearest friends", the director and writer said in a statement.
Organisers, who include the British writer William Dalrymple, issued a statement stressing that Kunzru and the other authors acted without their prior knowledge or consent, and saying they would not tolerate any illegal action at the festival.
The award-winning children's writer Alan Gibbons read a statement from the playwright Hall, in which Hall urged the council to change its mind, saying that "a Labour administration which would even consider closing all local libraries travesties the history of the Party and the Labour movement".
At noon on Friday, the festival's organisers, who include the writer William Dalrymple, released a statement from Rushdie explaining that he had "been informed by intelligence sources … that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to eliminate me".
We're running round the rings of an alien world and then a haunted house," Steven Moffat, "Doctor Who's" executive producer and lead writer, said in a statement.
