Croatian Festival Wants Houellebecq Play Back

The Dubrovnik Summer Festival appeared to be speedily backtracking on its earlier decision to pull a play by the controversial French writer Michel Houellebecq - on the grounds that it might offend Muslims.

"Elementary Particles", a play based on one of his novels, was suddenly yanked from the program last week after the festival organisers received a note from the interior ministry, calling the play a security risk.

The festival's director, Ivana Medo Bogdanovic, said they had since received confirmation from the ministry that security conditions would be provided for the play to go ahead.

The governing board of the festival said a decision would be finally taken by Friday.

Director of drama for the Dubrovnik festival Mani Gotovac stated that Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic had told them the police would secure the conditions for the performance.

"Interior minister Ranko Ostojic and President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic... share the opinion of the majority of members of the festival council that approved the festival program," Gotovac noted.

The Interior Ministry made its original security assessment after the Prefect of Dubrovnik Neretva County, Nikola Dobrovic, said the play was potentially offensive because of the the writer's "bad relations to Muslims and their religion", although the play itself contains no reference to Islam.

"Elementary Particles" centres on the life of the half-brothers with loveless lives, tackling the issue of cloning.

Houellebecq's newest novel "Submission" - set in a future France that has come under Muslim domination - has caused a much bigger storm.

Notoriously, it came out on the same day in January when Islamists in Paris gunned down Jews at a...