Diary

[Jenny Diski, London Review of Books, November 5th 2009]:

I initially I thought it no more than mildly interesting in a world full of more interesting events when I read that Roman Polanski had been imprisoned in Switzerland prior to being extradited to the US on a 30-year-old charge of rape. But, increasingly, in the news, on Facebook, Twitter, the LRB blog and in conversation, I’ve been reading the argument between those who think he should not have been arrested and those who think he should, even after all this time, be returned to the US for sentencing, although the woman concerned (Samantha Geimer – she has allowed her name to be published) has now said that she doesn’t want the matter pursued.

Then I got twitchy when I read the petition written by Bernard-Henri Lévy, and signed by Paul Auster, Milan Kundera, William Shawcross, Claude Lanzmann, Salman Rushdie, Mike Nichols, Neil Jordan, and, to bring up the female numbers, Diane von Furstenberg, the Isabelles Adjani and Huppert, Yamani Benguigui, Danièle Thompson and Arielle Dombasle.

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