More than 100 writers have signed a letter to PEN American Centre urging it to reject support from the Israeli government.

The writers include Alice Walker, author of The Colour Purple, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Junot Diaz, and Native American writer Louise Erdrich. Poet Eileen Myles, writer Russell Banks and activist Angela Davis also signed the letter.

An American writer’s group will keep the Israeli embassy as a sponsor of its literature festival, despite calls by writers to drop the endorsement.

Over 100 writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners Junot Díaz, Richard Ford, and Alice Walker, were among those who signed the message, sent last week to PEN American Center by pro-BDS organization Adalah-NY.

Talk about perverse: The authors’ wing of the boycott-Israel movement has its panties in a knot over the Israeli Embassy’s support for this month’s PEN World Voices Festival here in the city.

PEN is an association of literary types; the protesters include Pulitzer-winning novelists Alice Walker, Richard Ford and Junot Díaz. But what’s truly bizarre is their gripe.

Walker complains that PEN is failing to stand up for “Palestinian writers, academics, and students who are suffering under a repressive Israeli regime that denies their right to freedom of expression.”