Letter: Immoral artists

Sir: David Lister ("Can immoral artists produce great works?" 30 December) sees, in the decision made on behalf of female students to remove a bust of the alleged serial rapist Arthur Koestler, a slippery slope leading to "militant feminists" (who else?) demonstrating against Shakespeare and perhaps burning books by artists who were not "nice". I am grateful for being alerted to the danger inherent in letting that monstrous regiment get its way, but I do have niggling doubts.

First, it seems to me that to be a serial rapist is not to be "imperfect" or not "nice", nor even to have affairs or to be involved in Cold War machinations (as the other artists mentioned were); it is not an aspect of one's private life, any more than murders committed in secret are of interest to the murderer alone.

The distinction between text and writer has never been as pure as Lister insists. If it were, there would never have been a bust of the man (not a copy of his books) on display in Edinburgh. Nothing that the Edinburgh authorities have done need suggest that Koestler's texts should be shunned. It is just that this kind of personal honouring is inappropriate.

I suggest that all artists (like all journalists) are immoral, but some are more immoral than others, and that even "female students" can have a voice in discerning the distinction.

PATRICK MORROW

York