Sally Rooney says she can ‘no longer’ publish work in UK over Palestine Action support

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Irish novelist Sally Rooney has said that her publisher can no longer sell her work within the UK due to her voicing support for proscribed protest group Palestine Action.

The Normal People writer, 35, said in August 2025 that she intended to use earnings from her work and her public platform to support Palestine Action, which the British government proscribed as a terrorist organisation in July that year.

In a new statement on Wednesday (14 October), Rooney revealed that while the group are not a prohibited group in the Republic of Ireland, where she is based, her novels being sold in the UK would “constitute a serious criminal offence” due to her backing of Palestine Action.

“In July 2025, the direct-action protest group Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK,” she told The Guardian. “The following month, I wrote an opinion piece expressing my intention to go on supporting Palestine Action, which is not a proscribed or otherwise prohibited group here in the Republic of Ireland.

“As a result, the fulfilment of contracts to publish my work in the UK could now constitute a serious criminal offence. After a process of consultation and deliberation, and with my full agreement, my publisher Faber has therefore determined that it can no longer supply my work within the UK.

“I have made every effort to be honest with the public about my beliefs and intentions, and I am wholly prepared to accept the consequences.”

The Independent has contacted Faber and Rooney for comment.

Rooney said in November last year that she was “almost certain” she could “no longer publish or produce any new work within the UK while this proscription remains in effect” as her UK publishers were unsure whether they would be able to pay her for her work due to the risk that she could use the money to support Palestine Action.

Submitting a witness statement to the High Court in support of the legal challenge to Palestine Action’s proscription, Rooney said: “If Palestine Action is still proscribed by the time my next book is due for publication, then that book will be available to readers all over the world and in dozens of languages, but will be unavailable to readers in the United Kingdom simply because no one will be permitted to publish it (unless I am consent to give it away for free).

“If, therefore, [her publisher] Faber and Faber Limited are legally prohibited from paying me the royalties I am owed, my existing works may have to be withdrawn from sale and would therefore no longer be available to readers in the UK.”

Hailed as a voice of a generation, Rooney’s breakout novel Conversations with Friends made numerous literary shortlists in 2017 before she achieved global fame a year later with Normal People, which was adapted into a Bafta-winning BBC romantic drama starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Since then, she has published two further novels – Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021) and Intermezzo (2024) – as well as numerous short fiction titles.

Over the last few years, Rooney has vocally supported Palestine Action, arguing that they are “plainly not a terrorist organisation” and condemning the UK government’s decision to proscribe them.

The author accused the British government of stripping its citizens of basic rights and freedoms “in order to protect its relationship with Israel” in an essay for the Irish Times in August 2025, following the arrest of over 500 people protesting against the Palestine Action ban.

“The ramifications for cultural and intellectual life in the UK – where the eminent poet Alice Oswald has already been arrested, and an increasing number of artists and writers can no longer safely travel to Britain to speak in public – are and will be profound,” she said.

TS Eliot prize winner and University of Oxford professor Oswald was one of those arrested during the protests.

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