The foreword - "The Tremendous Power of Literature", by Vered Cohen Barzilay,[4] discusses the relationship between the Italian novella "Prima di Lasciarsi" by Gabriella Ambrosio (English: "Before We Say Goodbye") and human rights.
The foreword along with the book was translated into various languages and published around the world in many countries including UK, US, Canada, Poland, Spain, Latin America, and Italy.
Marina Nemat, author of "Prisoner of Teheran"[8] and the winner of the first European Parliament 'Human Dignity' award [9] explains: "Literature allows the victim to become a survivor and stand up to the past to ensure a better future.
Without literature and narrative, we would lose our identity as human beings and will dissolve in the darkness of time and our repeated mistakes that lead us from one preventable devastation to the next".
[10] Hence, human rights literature emphasizes the responsibility of the author to delve into writing that is not deliberately isolated from the world and geopolitical events, and regional or global social crises.
According to the American philosopher professor Martha Nussbaum in her book Poetic Justice,[11] she argues that social sympathy is a necessary condition for equitable treatment in courts of law.
Indeed, Human Rights Literature does not impose on the authors actual call for action, rather, the writer's task ends as soon as he completes the writing process.
In fact, the commitment is an unwritten accord between the readers and the literary creation developed through the reading process, which holds simultaneously the freedom to refrain from action.
It is argued that for the purpose of reaching the masses such literature will be reduced to the lowest common denominator while compromising quality standards to a limited criteria of stimulation for action.
Another criticism of engaged literature suggests irrelevance of the commitment for action during times of large-scale events or conflicts once these circumstances change, and while a great novel is eternal and can exist in timeless literary space.
Sartre argued that those who attack engaged literature are manifesting again the old desire to retreat into a private shell and ignore events which may someday reach their lives.
Authors, he claimed, are trying in vain to isolate themselves from reality, and during a demanding writing process they are cut off from social problems, and thus, create literature for sheer escapism.
As Gabriella Ambrosio, author of Before We Say Goodbye, writes in the foreword of her short story "Sticko": "At times, writers are afraid to know what is inevitable: that “pure” art does not exist.
"[15] Another dilemma which was raised by intellectuals and in literary circles is the issue of the author's competence to the task if indeed a novel is an adequate tool for generating social action.
Human rights literature does not believe writing is solely an artistic aesthetic exercise, and calls on writers to realize the social commitment under the power of their literary creation that it effects on the public is enormous and does not come to fruition often.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Nelle Harper Lee is one example of a novel that had major contribution and impact on American public opinion on the issue of race and rights.
He published a manifesto calling for freedom of expression and free elections, and in 2009 was sentenced to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power”.