The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

Amnesty pulls plug on Profile deal

12.03.08 Tom Tivnan

Amnesty International has pulled the plug on its agreement with Profile Books for its joint series on human rights.

The BLOODlikeWATER project was due to be launched at the Edinburgh Book Festival with 30 writers, including J M Coetzee, Paulo Coelho, Tom Stoppard and Nadine Gordimer, due to contribute short stories. Profile was to publish six books in the series, which will now not be part of its 2008 publishing programme.

Amnesty said in a statement: "Amnesty International and Profile Publishing will no longer be collaborating on Amnesty's provisionally titled BloodlikeWater literary project. Amnesty will be working on a expanded version of this planned literary project. It will now be published in 2009 to mark the 60th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Ruth Killick, Profile publicity director, said: "It's a shame. But Amnesty is a big organisation and they decided to change their focus. But we have a lot of other irons in the fire."

tom tivnan Profile Amnesty

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